Oh boy, is island life SLOOOW! Was just on the extremely remote and tiny Easter Island (65 sq miles total) and I don´t think I´ve ever managed to do less in a week! It certaintly was interesting to go from the intense Inca Trail to a week of nothingness- talk about polar opposites. It was a vacation from my vacation. Horses, cows and bulls just seem to roam free (though they all do belong to the locals) and everyone rides horses around instead of driving cars. I can just imagine growing up there and instead of begging to borrow my parents car, we´d argue about which horse I was allowed to take out for the day! Also, the entire place shuts down for the hours of 1-5pm for siesta time. Ah- heavenly!!
After a bout of food poisoning, or something equally traumatizing, on the 5 1/2 hour plane ride from Santiago to Rapa Nui (as Easter Island is called in the local tongue), we made it to Camping Mihinoa, our hostel overlooking the ocean where we spent a great majority of our week. On our first day, taking the advice of our Canadian roomie, we went on a seven hour hike to check out some Moai (the giant statues the island is famous for) and find some caves.The Moai were pretty easy to find, as they are around 27 feet high, but we couldn´t find the caves for the life of us. We gave up and hired a taxi to take our tired feet back to the dorm.
Before I go any further, let me take a moment to explain a little about the Moai (pronounced Mo-eye) and the origins of Rapa Nui. This information may be a little off base, as I´m reproducing it mostly from memory, but you´ll get the general idea. I´m also taking some of this information from the fictional movie “Rapa Nui,” produced by Kevin Costner, but let´s just go with that and whatever I learned on my tour today, since I´m not claiming to be a Moai scholar. It is theorized that the island was first inhabited by Polynesians, who managed to get to the most remote island in the world on their little wooden boats by following sea turtles and the stars. Once settled here around 600AD, they divided into seven clans and set up villages on the coast. After about six hundred years, the King of the most powerful clan (The Long Ears) started forcing one of the clans with less clout (The Short Ears) to build Moai to honor the spirits and give everyone good Mana (energy). They carved the Moai out of rock in the volcano quarry, which I saw first-hand, then would push them down the hill into a hole that was already dug for them, then would use ropes and pulleys to get them upright, and the Moai would “walk” to it´s Ahu (ceremonial platform) where it would finally be placed. VIPs of the villages were buried underneath the Ahu and their spirit would come alive in the Moai and they would protect the village in that way. All of the finished and placed Moai, except the 7 who were built to honor the original 7 explorers who first came to the Island, are facing the villages for protection. There are 887 Moai in existence, though most of them are still in the quarry either unfinished or awaiting transport to their ahus. No one knows exactly how they were moved six miles, as some weigh 80 tons! They think that they used wooden logs in order to roll them and that would explain why no trees were left on the island by the time the modern day explorers found it in the 1770´s. Some of the Moai even have hairstyles- they have red “topknots,” which basically makes them look like they are wearing hats- very stylish indeed! I also quickly want to explain the “Bird Man Competition.” A man was chosen from each clan to compete in this competition, which decided who would be the next king. The competitors had to run a great distance along the top of a volcano crater, climb down the cliff to the sea, swim to a tiny island off the coast where a special bird lays its eggs (while avoiding the sharks in the ocean), grab the first egg, and bring it back to the village unharmed. Whichever clan´s man did this the quickest, would be the new clan who ruled. Pretty interesting if you ask me. Imagine if Presidents were picked that way?!
And here endeth the history lesson.
Other than learning about the great mysteries of the Moai, Dee and I basically explored the entire island by foot. It was just waaay too expensive to rent a car, or even a scooter, for a day, so we did a lot of wandering. I managed to get the most tan I´ve probably ever been, just by roaming around and laying on the beach. I am paying for it now though and peeling like a mo´fo.´ There is only one real BEACH on the whole island- the other two are in town and are ridiculously small, so I wouldn´t even call them real beaches to be honest. I was surprised. The real beach is 18km away from town and had to take a taxi there and back, which is an annoying and expensive process.
On the second night, we went to see the “Rapa Nui” movie, but before the movie started, they showed a tourism documentary about the island. It was completely pointless because as Dee proclaimed, “You already convinced us- we´re here!!!” There were tons of Japanese people at our hostel and they insisted on cooking fish heads over the fire nightly, and it was absolutely disgusting. They even ate the eyes, which they said are the healthiest part because they make you smarter! Sick!! We also cooked nearly all of our meals at the hostel, though they were a little milder than fish heads, and it was a nice change to cook.
The highlight of our week there was going to the local prison to buy handicrafts. The inmates make these crafts themselves, so they are a lot less expensive than buying them anywhere else on the island. I was trying to bargain with one of them, and he told me that it was already so much less than it´d be at the market, and Dee was like, “Oh yea?! When was the last time you went to the market?” Haha. Anyway, the prisoners are made up of two robbers and a murderer who killed his wife after finding her in bed with another man. It was pretty crazy to be in this laid-back prison, where the gate is simply left open, and the prisoners are roaming around using CHAINSAWS to carve wood during arts and crafts time. They were all very nice and gave us lots of free presents- I think they are starved for attention from the ladies- so rewarded us for our presence quite generously. We both got necklaces made out of conch shells and chicken feathers. Dee received a pencil holder made out of the stump of a tree that was supposed to represent one of the three volcanos on the island. He insisted that Dee “practice” putting a pencil in the hole, because you know, putting a pencil in a hole is a pretty difficult art to master (insert sarcasm here). My free gift was a strawberry carved out of volcanic rock, which is also ridiculously random, but how can you turn something like that down!
On the full day tour we met this guy, David, who was about 65 and had a 32 year old physician girlfriend. He asked me if I could choose three places in the world to reside in for four consecutive months at a time, and I had all the money in the world, where would I live? I chose NYC for spring, Sydney for fall (their spring) and York, England for winter. EVERYONE thought that was absolutely hysterical- who would choose York?! Ali and I went there on our England road-trip last year, and I really just thought it was the cutest place in the world and would be so cozy for winter- like Kate Winslet´s little cottage in Surrey in the movie “The Holiday.” Anyway, thought that was hilarious.
On the 23rd, the man who ran our hostel drove us to the airport for our flight back to Santiago. The girl sitting in the front seat went to put on her seatbelt, but he wouldn´t let her put it on. I was appalled, as I am quite obsessed with putting on my seatbelts and get made fun of quite often for even using them in taxis, so I asked him “por que?” (why?). His reply was, “that´s just not how we do things here.” What is WRONG with putting on a seatbelt though?! Still confused about that one. Honestly though, most of the cars I´ve been in in all of South America don´t even OFFER seatbelts to put on.
Overall, I definitely enjoyed my “vacation,” although we did find it very difficult to fill all of the hours of the day since it didn´t get dark until 10pm and there wasn´t really a lot on the island, other than all the Moai. Had some amazing local fish and amazing papas fritas (french fries). Just to give you an idea of how pricey the island was, one night we went out and each had a cocktail and split a plate of fries and it cost $28! Ridic- just ridic.
