Photos: Lyle Such Writing: Thu Buu
After a physical week in Torres Del Paine, our last destination needed to be a place that is slow-paced and relaxing but with enough to do to keep us entertained for a few days. Easter Island, or Isla Pasqual as the Chileans call it, was the perfect choice. I’ve been dreaming of visiting those big heads since I first encountered them in college. They have always held a special place in my heart, those giant stones that toppled a whole civilization.
Ravenous after settling in, we headed back out on foot towards the main road to look for a bite to eat. Most of the restaurants were dark and empty. It was 5 in the afternoon. At one place, we were told that the restaurants don’t usually open until 7 P.M. We spied a place with their doors open. No one was inside on the first floor. We climbed the stairs toward the balcony. As we ate our first meal on Easter Island, we watched the local soccer game being played on the field across the street.
After dinner, we walked to a field where an Ahu of almost five resurrected Moai stood to watch the sun set. Others had already gathered here as if they were about to witness some type of sacred ceremony. Some had blankets spread upon the grassy amphitheater, others had tripods strategically positioned for the best views of the setting sun as it lit up the backs of the Moai. Suddenly, like a wave, all heads turned backwards and up towards the sky. A misty mass of silver cloud glistening with streaks of pink and purple had formed behind us. A rainbow arched above it. As quickly as the colors appeared, they disappeared. Within minutes, tiny drops of rain began falling as the last rays of golden sun submerged behind the dark horizon. What a way to end the first day on Easter Island.
Easter Island is 2,300 miles west of the Chilean coast, making it the most isolated, inhabited island on earth. It was created when lava from erupting volcanoes came together to form a triangular island hundreds of thousands of years ago. Those same volcanoes, now dormant and docile act as the vertexes of this tiny island.
Colonized by Polynesian explorers who came by wooden canoes around 900 A.D., Easter Island was not discovered by the Western world until Easter Day of 1722 by a Dutch explorer. Thus, the island was named.
Hanga Roa is Easter Island’s only town. There’s one main street lined with grocery stores, restaurants, souvenir shops, and tourist companies. Everything is coated with a film of red dust. Similarly, the SUV we rented was stained red. In one second, my white hat was anything but white. It’s part of the way of life here.
Dogs...stray dogs...gangs of stray dogs roam the streets loudly barking and howling at one another vying for the attention of the uninterested female. The dogs on this island are definitely more wild than those on mainland Chile. My fear of dogs quickly resurfaced. Luckily for me, they only roamed around town and were rarely seen elsewhere on the island. In addition to the sounds of the dog “mischief,” the roosters also contributed to the audio character of the island. They kept up their cock-a-doodle-dooing all night long, and well into the morning. They only seemed to take a break during the afternoon.
Ahu Tongariki is the largest ahu on the island. The platform itself is at least ten ft. high. These stone giants can weigh anywhere from 10 to 270 tons and can reach the height of 70 ft. tall. The moai at Ahu tongariki were re-erected in 1994 with the use of a crane. Imagine the amount of human labor and natural resources needed to erect just one of these statues a millennium ago!
There are about 300 stone platforms or Ahu around the coast of the island. There are a few scattered inland. The moai or stone heads look inward over the territory belonging to the clan.
The statues at Anakena Beach even have hats or pukao made from red volcanic stones.
It took me 20 minutes to blow up this enormous balloon. I had to stop between bouts of lightheadedness. But it had to be done. Dumb Dumb needs his gum gum. How can we pass up an opportunity like this?
The quarry at Rano Raraku is the only place on the island where stones for the statues can be found. There are 397 moai at the quarry in all different phases of completion, stage of transportation and position.
Rano Kau crater is now a beautiful lake full of water reeds. It looks like a mosaic. Too bad we were able to drive right up to the mouth of the crater. What a wonderful sight it would have been if we had to hike all the way up.
This ahu was one of the first platforms to be commissioned. It was also constructed inland looking out towards the sea in honor of the first seven explorers to reach the island.
We felt like we owned the whole island on our secluded hike up Terevaka volcano. Besides a cowboy on horseback coming down the mountain, no one else was within sight. Even the horse wandered contently, looking for green patches of grass. Rolling hills of wavering grass stretched out in front of us without any man-made border to keep us in tow. We could have run in any direction we wanted, and we did. We ran right down into the pit of the crater of the volcano. The openness made me feel so happy and free, I had to do a cartwheel!
We bought some fresh veggie and fruit from the small farmer’s market. Because agriculture is limited on the island, most of the food has to be flown in from Santiago. This is why the cost of food on Easter Island is so high.
Chile is the definition of a “Developing Country”. It offers many services, conveniences and amenities seen in the First World…but it’s just not quite there yet. For example, most hotels offered Wi-Fi services for an extra cost. But the connection was so spotty that it was more convenient for us to go down to the lobby and use those computers instead. The air-conditioning in our hotel room in Santiago didn’t work. It would have been fine if there had been a way to open the window even for a crack. On our return from Torres Del Paine, all I wanted was a nice, hot shower. You guessed it. No hot water!...just like the hostel we stayed in after our trip to Machu Picchu. In the cities, the roads are paved, but once you leave the city, the pavement turns to gravel or dirt. If the pavement continued, it was a given we’d have to steer around giant potholes. The car rides were tough on the tires and on our derrieres.
But the pinnacle of all our “Developing Country” experiences was being trapped at the airport. Because our plane leaving Santiago for Lima had mechanical malfunctions, we missed our connecting flight from Lima to Easter Island. So instead of flying us to Lima, LAN decided they would put us on a direct flight the next day from Santiago, which meant we had to spend the night in Santiago. It took the airline company over an hour to reissue our boarding passes for the next day’s flight because the one worker left to deal with this problem did not speak any English. It didn’t help that there were seven of us in this same predicament. Two bossy Chinese ladies kept shoving their cell phones into the LAN worker’s face. They had an interpreter on the other end of the line, and in about another half an hour, they disappeared. We were left standing cluelessly at the counter with an ever-more frustrating English couple, and a sun-burnt Russian in a cut-off jean vest. He was a cross between Karl Pilkington and the Russian super-villain from Despicable Me. It was around midnight by the time the worker handed us our boarding passes. When we went downstairs, we had to pass through immigration to get out of the airport. But the immigration officers said that we couldn’t get back into Chile because we hadn’t gone out of Chile. We were what they called “In Transition”. So we had to haul ourselves back up to the LAN counter again. There seemed to be a breakdown in communication between the different units within the airport. No one seemed to know what to do to get us out. After another hour of walking through secret hallways and waiting at the Immigration Investigation counter, another LAN employee finally found our documents after sorting through all the immigration papers by hand. The next pressing matter was our luggage. We did not want our luggage sent to Lima on the original flight. The English couple was adamant about this from the very beginning of the night. The workers assured us that they had pulled all of our luggage off the plane. However, when they rolled the baggage cart toward us, there were only three bags, two belonging to Lyle’s and one that was mine. The airline representatives had no clue where the English couple’s bags were. They didn’t get their bags until Tuesday night on Easter Island, 3 days later. There was a Marriott’s right next to the airport. For some reason, LAN would not put us up there. They had us taxied into Santiago, and coincidentally enough, we were dropped off at the Crown Plaza Hotel, the exact same hotel we stayed at weeks before. It was 2:30 AM by the time we hit the sack. It shouldn’t have taken four hours to resolve this conflict.
