Last Thursday was a travel day and we were excited because we were headed to a very unique place on the planet – Easter Island. I’ve always been intrigued by its remote location and the mystery of the Moai on the island. It was really nice to be staying right at the airport in Santiago. We checked out and then walked across the domestic departure lanes into the airport. Check-in went smooth and so did security. We found a lounge we could get some eggs and pancakes in while we awaited our flight departure.
We boarded on time and then our Boeing 787 was wheels up a little late at 11:50 for our five hour flight to the tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. During the flight, we had some pasta and we both watched Baby Girl and Wicked. Baby Girl was a strange one and Wicked was good. With the two hour time change, we landed at 2:40pm where Lia from our AirBnB met us to take us to our cabana.
Hungry, we dropped our luggage off and then walked a few minutes to a restaurant called Taha Tai where we had pineapple juice and raspberry juice – I had stuffed chicken and Sandy had grilled chicken and sauteed vegetables. We walked back along the water home, unpacked, and then went out to watch sunset over the water – it’s a two minute walk to the coast from our cabana. Initial impressions – this is exactly how you would picture a Polynesian island: ocean breezes, incredible views, flora that is filled with diverse colors, warm temperatures. It’s beautiful here.
The three names of the island are: Easter Island in English, Isla Pascua in Spanish, and Rapa Nui in the local language. Rapa Nui is by far the way we have heard it referenced here and throughout Chile. It’s a very small island – roughly ten miles east to west and five miles north to south – with a population of around 8,000 people – almost all living in the city on the southwestern coast called Hanga Roa.
Friday, we went for an interval run right by our cabana (the place is called Tipi Tipi Hoe). After the run, we set off on a Lonely Planet-suggested walk around the Hanga Roa area. First, we looked for a cave with rock paintings, but it was closed off.
As we walked through town, we grabbed a couple of bananas because we were starved on our way to La Creperia, where we did our Starbucks time and had small orders of pancakes with local honey – they were awesome. We were there for a couple of hours so before we left, we had bacon, egg, and cheese crepes with tea.
We continued our walk then, which included a small market with locally-made crafts and imported touristy things from China, exploring our first Moai (these are the famous stone-carved men who guard and overlook the island), the Catholic cemetery, and chatting with Patricia at Mahinatur to book our full-day tour tomorrow to other parts of the island. We finished our walk by going to the grocery store to get some things to have around the cabana while we are here this week. The owner didn’t speak English but he was very helpful in tracking things down for us. We walked back home and then headed to another restaurant just around the corner – this one called Neptuno’s Sunset Restaurant. The views from these places are perfect and we enjoyed the sunset along with pisco sours, I had ceviche, and Sandy had tempura shrimp with mashed potatoes.
Saturday was our full-day tour, so we were up in time to have some breakfast at home and be ready for our pickup at 9am. We knew they may not come right at 9 and they picked us up around 9:45. Our tour guide was Luis and our driver was Gabriel. There were seven other visitors on the tour with us today. Luis spoke excellent English. We had seen signs protesting the building of a port and we talked with Luis to get his opinion. He is generally against it and he said most people are because of the impacts to the environment. Others are in favor because it would help them see more tourists through cruise ships and also receive more cargo shipments. The tour had five main stops – three in the morning and two in the afternoon. The first two stops were the best for me.
Ahu Tongariki was first. Ahu is the name of the platform on which the Moai statues stand. The Moai were sculpted when a very important person died and was commissioned by their family. These would be rulers or high priests for example. Under the Moai, inside the ahu, would be the burial chamber. Ahu Tongariki is one of the most well-known images of the Moai on Rapa Nui and I felt very fortunate to be able to see it up close.
The next stop was Volcan Rano Raraku – just a short drive away from Ahu Tongariki. This is one of the three main volcanoes on Rapa Nui and it houses the location of the quarry from where the stones came to sculpt the Moai statues. The walk up and around the crater is filled with carved Moai statues in various stages of development. It is a fascinating place and rather incredible to see how the Moai were carved first horizontally out of the rock, then stood up vertically, and then transported (these things weigh tens of thousands of pounds) to various points around the island. It is still unknown today how they were moved across the rugged terrain, although there are several theories. I choose to subscribe to the one that says it took up to 200 men, with 50 on each side, to sort of waddle the statue wherever it was going. It took upwards of a year for four sculptors to finish one statue. Incredible.
Our third stop was Akahanga (all three of these stops were along the southern coast of the island). This one was an ahu that is now in disrepair. It’s not as impressive, but it helps to inform the story of what happened to these statues. The Moai were mainly carved five hundred or so years ago and they either stood facing the sea or more commonly faced inward watching over the Rapa Nui people. In the 1700s, there was a great civil war between the 18 clans living on the island and it is believed that during the struggles, the Moai statues were intentionally dragged down. In the 1990s, funds from Japan helped restore the Moai at Ahu Tongariki. On top of the civil war impacts, the 1960 earthquake in Chile (the biggest one to ever be recorded on the planet) caused a tsunami that washed over the southern coast and caused many of the Moai to be swept further inland.
After a quick stop in town for lunch (we had delicious empanadas – Sandy had a seafood one and a Neapolitan one and I had a shrimp one and a Neapolitan one), we headed to our other two stops. First was Te Pito Kura – another Moai complex where women would come to give birth and get the blessing from the Moai statue located at this spot. There is also a meteorite here that Luis was able to demonstrate the affect on his compass because of the magnesium in the meteorite. Away from the stone, the compass pointed directly north; against the stone, the compass spun away from north.
Our last tour stop was Anakena. This was the royal beach several hundred years ago and now it is just a beautiful beach on the north shore of the island. Plenty of people were here enjoying their day at the beach and we had time where we could have gone in the water but we decided not to do so. The beach is home to another ahu and this one has the island’s best collection of Moai with the red topknots on their head. These are depictions of the hair they had that were twisted into a topknot.
Gabriel and Luis dropped us off at our cabana at 5:45 and we were really happy with our daylong tour. Dinner tonight was at La Pizzeria where we shared a delicious margherita pizza and tried three different local beers – all pretty good. I have decided to embark on watching all of the Marvel Universe films (I think). Tonight, I watched Iron Man and we’ll see how long I stick with this plan – I think there are around 35 films and by the time I finish, there will probably be more than 40. It won’t be a race.
We planned Sunday to be a day at home. We had things to get done and it was supposed to rain a bit. Sandy got our laundry done. For lunch, we made an egg scramble with vegetables and we shared an avocado. Dinner was spaghetti and wine. With the conclave coming up later this week to select a new pope, we decided to watch the movie Conclave. Now we know what is going to happen.
Monday started with a four-mile run along the waterfront. We enjoyed our full-day tour with Mahinatur so we decided to do the half-day tour tomorrow with them. We went to their office on the main street to get that squared away. For lunch, we went to the restaurant right at Playa Pea and watched the surfers while enjoying a tuna empanada, ceviche, and mixed berry juices. I’ll never get tired of the views from these restaurants along the waterfront.
During the afternoon, we did some logistical planning and we watched two YouTube videos – one on the history of Rapa Nui and another on Pitcairn Island. Pitcairn is even smaller – only around 40 people live on that island and they don’t have an airport, so their only way to get to and from the island is via a 32-hour ferry to Tahiti. We then walked down to watch the waves and the sunset and then headed back to Taha Tai, the restaurant where we ate when we first arrived on Thursday. This time, Sandy did the stuffed chicken and I had a chicken Caesar salad. We’ve also been watching Masked Singer and Cheers along the way, so more of that tonight.
Tuesday started with our guide Hanga and driver Nelson picking us up at 9 and we expected to have five other visitors with us, but it ended up being just us. Hanga is probably in his early 20s, speaks excellent English, and was fun to talk with. He’s more in the camp of thinking that the port should be built – he says it is basically inevitable that it will happen and it will help the island in the long run.
Today’s first stop was at Vinapu, which is an ahu in the southwestern part of Rapa Nui. It is in disrepair, but the remnants demonstrate how similar the stone structure is to one that we have seen in Cusco, Peru, built by the Incas. It begs the question of what influence (if any) did the Incas have on the Rapa Nui people. Archaeologists do not have that answer yet.
The next stop was Rano Kau, which is another one of the island’s main volcanoes. The crater is now filled with a lake and today happened to be very windy. The winds may have been around 30 miles per hour and at the top, unobstructed, it took effort to stand. It was difficult to hear Hanga talking to us due to the wind. Because of the wind, we could not go to our third and final stop – the Orongo Ceremonial Village. We could visit the visitor center, but couldn’t actually go out and around the village. Just too dangerous. A tradition that stopped in the 1800s was that each year, a chief of a clan or his representative, would come to this spot on the island and a race would take place. The competitors would race down the cliff, jump into the water, swim to an outcropping of rocks offshore, wait for an egg from a local seabird to appear in a nest, take the egg and race back to land and up the cliff. The first person to get the egg safely back would then go into solitude for 12 months and afterward become the next ruler of the island (or his chief would). It was incredibly dangerous – not only the route for the race would result in deaths, but the competitors would kill each other also.
Back in town before 12, we started Sandy’s birthday celebration a day early. Sandy wanted to try different chocolate cakes to find the best and it would be silly for me to disagree so she didn’t have to twist my arm. 😊 First stop was O Te Ahi and we shared a chocolate brownie cheesecake.
Next we went across the street to Rapa Coffee, where we had cheese and tomato omelets with guava juices and then shared a very rich chocolate brownie. We enjoyed talking with the mother and daughter who own Rapa Coffee and we were glad to have gone today because tomorrow, they head to Brazil for vacation and the shop will be closed.
The next stop was a chocolate shop called Tokorate, but they didn’t have any cakes – they did have chocolate covered almonds so we got a handful of those.
We went back to our cabana for a bit and then down to the water with our chairs and sat watching the waves and the sunset. For dinner, we went to the very nice hotel across the street from our place called Nayara. I had tuna with banana gnocchi and guava juice and Sandy had steak with sauteed vegetables and mango juice. It was a delicious dinner and a nice ambience.
Sandy’s birthday was on Wednesday and like last year, the idea was for her to get to make all of the decisions all day and do whatever felt right in the moment. Her heel has been bothering her like plantar fasciitis and it is time for her to get new running shoes anyway, so we went to the one shoe store in town and found a nice new pair of shoes for her. We also came across Cecilia there – she lives on Rapa Nui with her husband from here and she is from Ohio. She helped the shoe store employee translate to us. We also learned that she and her husband make sweet potato chips so we wanted to keep an eye out for those in one of the shops. Sandy’s foot was still bothering her so she walked a little while I did intervals at the soccer field and then I ran home while she walked. She did one more load of laundry to keep us in good shape until we can do our next loads and then we went back to Taha Tai for lunch, mainly out of convenience. We both had salmon and veggies. I headed home after lunch and Sandy went for an 80-minute massage next door to the restaurant. After getting ready to head out for a birthday dinner, we went back down to the water to see sunset but it was kind of drizzly and not much to see tonight. Dinner was at a restaurant called Makona. We shared a bottle of wine, Sandy had steak and sweet mashed potatoes – very purple – and I had ceviche and rice. It was a fantastic dinner followed by a nice walk home.
Yesterday (Thursday), our plan was to get a taxi to take us out to the gym, which is about a 65-minute walk from home. Unfortunately, our taxi driver didn’t show up, so we decided to walk, which wasn’t ideal because of Sandy’s heel. She was a trooper and we made it. The gym had plenty of equipment, some of it in better shape than other equipment, but it was so nice to not have to get in line for machines like the gym we went to in Vina del Mar. There was only one other person working out most of the time we were there and there were two coaches who gave advice on how best to use certain machines. We got our weights done and our cardio done and then one of the coaches called a taxi for us to get back to town. The taxi dropped us off at Napo’ ea for lunch. Sandy had a margherita pizza and mango juice. I have seen completos on menus all over Chile. Early on, I learned that they are hot dogs and I wanted to try one but never took the opportunity until today. It was a good hot dog – the bread was excellent, the hot dog had a good flavor, and it came with onions, mayonnaise, and tomatoes but it all tasted more like sauerkraut – I liked it. I had it with strawberry juice.
After reading for a while in the afternoon, we walked back to O te ahi to try a different chocolate cake. We liked this one the best.
Then, at the market, we found Cecelia’s sweet potato chips and enjoyed them on the bench in the plaza and watched the world go by. We had a nice chat with a woman from Colorado who arrived on Rapa Nui yesterday.
Dinner last night was back at Neptuno’s for another gorgeous view of the waves and sunset. Sandy had a pineapple chicken dish and I had my ceviche again. This one is the best ceviche I’ve had here on Rapa Nui. We got ourselves packed, watched some Masked Singer and Cheers, and then went to bed for today’s travel day.
Today, we said goodbye to our cabana at 11 and we walked to Aringa Ora restaurant because we had about an hour before needing to be at the airport. It was drizzly, so between raindrops, we got there and had strawberry juices and then walked the last few minutes to the airport. We checked our bags in, ate our oranges and apples because we could not take them through security and boarded our plane on time for the 2:20pm departure. Setting our clocks two hours forward, we were back in Santiago and to the Holiday Inn at the airport around 9pm. Tomorrow, we will hang out at the hotel, watch some TV, work on some logistics, workout in the hotel gym, and get ready to travel again on Sunday.
A final word on Rapa Nui: we loved it! Such a relaxing, beautiful, friendly place. We were glad to have spent eight nights here. If you were short on time, you could get through everything in three or four days, but then you’d miss out on enjoying the pace of the island. This wasn’t the first place we thought of when we put Chile in our top 20 list to get our journey started (Patagonia was more on our mind), but this is a treasure worth exploring.
We are winding down our time in Chile so this will be the last entry of travel activity for several weeks. Sandy will publish an entry of her observations of Chile in the coming days. On Sunday, we will travel to Pittsburgh to see cousins there and visit my grandmother’s grave. We are excited because my mom is meeting us there and will spend the next few days with us. Our plan is to then head up to Cleveland for a quick stop to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Then it is down to New Concord, Ohio to see our cousin, and then we will drive over to Indianapolis where my mom flies back to Florida and we stay in Indiana for about ten days to see friends and do all of the usual Indy 500 activities (we very much missed this time with these friends last year). Following Indy, we’ll head down to Sarasota for a few weeks and then in mid-June, we will head out to a completely different part of the world from where we have been so far this year.
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