Rapa Nui

Rapa Nui=Isla de Pascua=Easter Island, as in the one with the big heads.

G(German)Thomas, 4 days before trip: "I am going to Easter Island this weekend." Me: "OOOO I wanna go." Simple as that, I literally bought my plane ticket 4 days before, and packed about 30 minutes before leaving. It sounds so light, like ok, let's have a picnic this weekend! Except it was Rapa Nui, the place known around the world for its heads.

Late Thursday evening Thomas and I headed to Santago to meet Michael and avoid an extremely early morning commute. We ate out at about midnight, which is apparently a very popular time to eat dinner. Our waiter became known as wayon (dude) instead of garzón, the proper term, after a lengthy discussion about proper restaurant etiquette.

You know you are going to a special place when your entire flight applauds when you land. Really, everyone applauded. After Michael searched for his Ipod for 15 minutes (it was in his pocket), we set out to our hostel, a whopping 7 minute walk... about 40 for us actually, as we have no sense of direction, we had to be helped twice by nice islanders who are accustomed to worse than us. Our hostel was called Rana Kau...you know it has to be good with a name like that. I roomed with some pretty sweet Italians, who said caou for hello instead of goodbye. That messes with your head after a month of saying chao as you leave. There is a pretty nice view from the hostel, including a hill with three crosses on top. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to climb up there, the view had to be amazing, and who wouldn't want to run up an extinct volcano for fun? That's right, no one.

You probably know Rapa Nui for the moai, the large stone statues spread around various location around the rim of the island. Our first encounter with them was, as the Lonely Planet guide predicated, in the town of Hanga Rau. It really does not seem at first like anyone could have possibly made them, like it's some factory product that isn't real. The more I saw, the more both real and unreal it became as I thought of the effort to make and then move the things all over the place, for many kilometers.

The island itself is tiny, with 4,000 residents. For being so small, it has all of the stuff a town needs. Except a dentist. My favorite Hanga Rau fact: a dentist flies in once a week from Santiago, for one day, to offer services to the whole town. The residents there are mostly of Rapanui decent, or European decent, or Chilean, it's a huge mix. Rapanui and Spanish are spoken by most, and English is common as well, due to the tourism business. Speaking of, 90% of the island runs on tourism. More thoughts on culture/tourism later.

We opted for a guided bus tour of the largest loop on the island for the first day, both to complete the loop, as it's a really long bike ride, and to learn a lot more than we would on our own. The eastern coast has a lot of, well, ruined ruins, toppled moai and pukau (the hat things). It also has a lot of wild horses and cows, which apparently are chased frequently by dogs who trail behind tourists. The land is wide open, almost completely devoid of trees, and is really beautiful even in terrible weather. I expected the weather to be sort of static, but found instead a dynamic mix of rain and sun and storm and wind, which I absolutely loved for the unpredictability.

Around noon we make it to the quarry, at the volcano Rano Raraku. This part of the national park is probably the most famous image of the island; some ridiculous number of moai are scattered about on both sides of the crater, which also has a small lake. The moai are heavily guarded, as the rangers will literally follow behind your group to make sure you don't touch anything. It is exhilarating and somewhat unimaginable to think how these things were made. After a short lunch, where I had to pay to use a bathroom (a rather low blow if you ask me), we reached the quince moai. This includes the largest platform that was ever found and has 15 restored moai peering inland with the ocean as a backdrop. This was probably the most surreal part of all, and was a place where one could really just kind of sit and stare and wander around and explore for about 5 hours... or days. It's just like empty land and horses and then bam! 15 huge old statues, still intact somehow. I stood on a knoll for a picture, and Thomas threw Inca Toll, the traveling singing rabbit, towards me, where she proceeded to smash into the ground and sing for everyone when the button was set off. This was apparently the funniest thing our guide had ever seen. In all seriousness though, this is a special place, thought-provoking, dynamic, historical, unimaginable, one of my favorite sites on the whole island.

Finally, we made it to the Anakena beach, one of the island's small sand beaches. It was quite a weird experience, with two major archeological sites surrounded by white sand, and some really spectacular moai, the Ahu Ature Huki, and the 7 of Ahu Nau Nau. There was a large hill right next to the ocean that I had to climb simply because it was easily accessible, then I had my first ocean experience. Yes, my first swim in the ocean. It was like when you give a small child a bouncy ball; you can't pull them away, and they are completely absorbed and entertained by the simplicity of it. The water was insanely clear, and the waves somewhat significant. Mostly, it was entertaining, and I enjoyed being able to revert back to childlike behavior for a little while.

Regarding hostels, I have determined that they might be more interesting than micros, which is a pretty big deal. Every evening everyone comes back from their adventures and sits around chatting in about 7 languages about moai and travel and life. Every single person is so interesting; the lady from Japan traveling the world by herself, the hostel workers who speak Rapanui and Spanish and English, the Canadian who took 5 months off of school to run around South America. It would be worth staying even just for the opportunity to chat with these people. We opted for a show later this evening, which I am sure had fairly limited authenticity, but was really neat anyway. It involved a band, dancers, and a lot of singing in Rapanui.

Speaking of Rapanui, the church holds its service in both Rapanui and Spanish, with an interesting combination of singing, the addition of an accordion and bongos (yes, an accordion), and lots more tourists than islanders. The service held many similarities to a Lutheran service, and I quite enjoyed it. It was quaint and as Thomas said, full of joy.

After church the next day, we set out on bike to the western cliffs and interior. I feel like I am describing the land in a Redwall book whenever I use terms like 'western cliffs.' There is a great array of ruins spread along the coast, various moai at Tahai Kote Riku and Ahu Hanga Kio'e, as well as walls and house platforms. The whole area was volcanic boulders and high cliffs, the perfect place for a picnic, so picnic we did. Not a good place for the bathroom though, with winds strong enough to push over your bike. We spelunked in the cave of dos ventanas, crawled around fallen moai at Ahu e Peu, and turned inland, towards Rano Aroi, the volcano in the middle of the island, which I wanted more than anything to climb, which you probably guessed by now. We happened on the Te Pahu Cave next, which was like a massive lava tube with bases for houses in it. Thomas went hobbit style, without shoes, and I ruined mine. At the end was a tree, growing out of a partial cave-in. It was like Indiana Jones or a Tree of Life or something, this one tree emerging through rays of light towards the window at the top. It was really spectacular and surreal, especially since we had not previously known of its existence from the guidebook, we just happened upon it by chance.

At this point, two dogs had been following us around all day. One left us at the cave, the other stayed. He was with us for 9 hours, through rain and wind, two caves, and later a minimountain. As we entered back into daylight, there was the volcano, blanketed in clouds, not very accessible in 2 hours of daylight. We tried, but arrived on a private road and were chased away. The moai of the Ahu Akivi were there as well, the furthest inland site. Then for the disappointed return, without and volcano climbing. But we randomly found a sign that said Puna Pau, and knew that this had to be good, again simply because of the cool name. It turns out that this is the quarry for pukao, the hats that some moai have, were made out of softer reddish rock. It is also at the base of that hill, the one with three crosses. I call it Cerro Tres Cruces, but I think it is actually Maunga Tangaroa, which sounds a lot cooler. I bolted to the top, in wind that 5 minutes before had pushed over my bike. Though cloudy and rainy, the view was spectacular. The crosses were beautiful, and absolutely huge. It was a very spiritual place, with nature pounding away, white crosses intact and unharmed, with incoming storm and rain bands in the background. This was my favorite moment of the trip, the time spent on this hill and the dynamic that the land and weather created.

The bike ride back was on dirt road, in pitch black, with pounding wind and rain, and it was awesome. Here we experienced what is quite possibly the creepiest sound known to man. This is the sound similar to that of wind around power lines, except a product solely of the land, not manmade structure. It was the sound you hear before a tornado hits, a train. Nevertheless, we made it through and found our way back, gratified by the thrilling works of the island, and to be honest, not too disappointed to have missed the big volcano hike.

Finally, after a quick revisit to the Puna Pau quarry site the next morning, we embarked on our massive hike to the southwestern corner and volcan Rano Kau. The revisit for Thomas and I was due to the fact that the evening before, we completely bypassed all of the archeological aspects of the hike in order to conquer the three crosses hill. I should note on the Puna Pau revisit was done once again on bike, and that my camera was promptly smashed on the ground during the only three seconds of the whole trip that it was not tied to my belt loop. Yes, it flew from my bike at a pretty decent speed, and so my pictures from this point on are slightly out of focus. On to Rano Kau, southwestern corner of the island, and far from the crosses.

This massive caldera is still full of water and teeming with lots of plant life, including a band of florescent pink flowers. Here also is the Orongo village, with a nice amount of petroglyphs and stone houses. This is another absolutely unbelievable place. It overlooks a bright blue inlet and is ridiculously exposed to the elements on the edge of sea and crater. There are various-sized dwellings all around, about 40 in total. My favorite part of this area was the park ranger in the tiny station. We got stranded here during a rain shower, during which time we conversed almost exclusively about Inca Toll and how surprisingly common it is for travelers to carry stuffed animals, though they are usually smaller and don't sing. He started the song three times I think, and it was absolutely hilarious.

I gave some thought to the culture of Rapa Nui, and I can't figure it out. The entire society thrives on tourism, so does that mean that the Rapanui culture is lost, and has been recreated to fulfill the needs of others from around the world? Children learn both Rapa Nui and Spanish in school. Is the tourism more of a hinderance to the culture, or does the income help sustain an older way of life? Is tourism well-received, or is it a daily annoyance? Most of the culture died off when the Rapanui were taken for slaves or killed each other, and I do not know how much of this culture is still evident today. I would love about another month here to contemplate, get to know the people, not simply pass by.

So ends our trip. About 30 seconds after the taxi dropped us off in Santiago, I realized that my wallet was gone. Yes, I managed to lose my wallet that for the entire trip had been physically attached to my pants with a carabiner (see a theme yet? I lose anything that is attached to me, but not things that are loose). I unclipped it in the taxi and apparently left it there. So much for my Chile ID into which I had invested about 5 hours in total to obtain. My ISIC and metro cards are lost too... but luckily I had a separate holder for everything else, and I only lost about $45USD of stuff. But really, it was attached to my pants! I have a skill for losing things out of my pockets apparently.

I recommend everyone travel with an interesting object. My bunny, Inca Toll, constantly draws attention, and therefore conversation. Every time I clip her to my pack and walk around I get at least one or two comments. And you never know when a park ranger will sing and dance with it.