Moscow

It didn’t take long after leaving Paris yesterday for me to start experiencing Russia. On my flight to Moscow I happened to sit next to a Russian man close to my age who introduced himself as Kazma. On the surface Kazma didn’t seem to be unusual at all, but after talking with him for an hour or so I discovered he’s had a very unique life in Russia. Kazma was selected at the age of 5 to train to be part of the most elite hockey club in Russia: CSKA, also known as the ‘Red Army’. Throughout his entire childhood, Kazma devoted his life to playing hockey, and after playing hockey for the most elite junior team in Russia for several years, he was recruited to play hockey in Toronto. Eventually Kazma made it to the NHL, playing for the Chicago Blackhawks for two years before sustaining a career-ending injury to his shoulder. It was fascinating to talk to Kazma about his experience growing up in Russia, and about the friends he made in the world of hockey. Kazma listed off several star NHL players who were personal friends of his. Unfortunately I don’t know hockey very well, so I couldn’t discuss it with him in detail, but the whole experience was pretty amazing. Kazma currently is working in finance for a large Russian energy company, and occasionally works with the Russian billionaire who recently bought the New Jersey Nets. Kazma also likes to race sports cars with his friends, and showed me several pictures on his phone of his yellow Lamborghini.

This morning I left my cozy room at a guesthouse near Moscow’s Sheremetyvo Airport and waited at the nearest train station for a ride into the city. The ambiance was exactly like I imagined rural Russia would be like: crisp, cold air, a desolate train station with a few locals bundled tightly in warm clothing, and the silence broken only occasionally by old Soviet-era trains rumbling by. The ticket office was a formidable brick building painted pink, with only one tiny opening about four inches by ten inches on the side. A well dressed Russian man named Sergei communicated on my behalf with the mysterious people on the other side of the opening, and 49 rubles bought me a ticket into town. After waiting for several minutes, another train arrived that looked as if it had just rolled in from the USSR. Sergei indicated that this was the train we would be taking into Moscow, and we both found a seat in an interior that looked like that of an outdated American school bus.

As it turns out, Sergei also works in finance in Moscow. His English wasn’t quite as good as Kazma’s, but I gathered that he works with several large banks in Russia, and occasionally travels to Siberia for business, among other Russian destinations. Sergei is originally from Kazan, a city of great cultural significance about 500 miles east of Moscow. For some reason Sergei was eager to show me pictures of his cat, and when he flipped through a few of them on his phone I could understand why. Sergei’s cat is a full grown leopard. He flipped through picture after picture as we both laughed to ourselves. One picture was of the leopard sitting in the passenger seat of Sergei’s car and leaning out the window. Another picture was showed Sergei holding the leopard on a leash as the animal pulled ferociously away. Several others showed the leopard lounging and Sergei petting the beast like it was a house cat. Sergei used his limited English vocabulary to articulate to me exactly what kind of cat this was: ‘Big cat! Dangerous cat!’

I found out the hard way today that Russia can be a real challenge to get around in. Very few people speak any English at all, and all the signs on the streets and in the metro are in Russian (with its Cyrillic alphabet), and no accompanying English translation. With that said, the challenge makes it more of an adventure. After arriving at the train station in Moscow I literally wandered aimlessly for twenty minutes before I finally found an ATM where I could pull out some Russian rubles. Wandering through the metro system was a fascinating experience in itself. The turnstiles and ticket booths are completely antiquated and decrepit, and long, rumbling escalators transport commuters deep into the dark belly of the system. Train platforms are dimly lit by ornate chandeliers hanging from the ceiling above, and grungy marble covers nearly every surface of the walls. While using the metro I felt as if I could be in Soviet-era Russia sometime during the cold war, and when I arrived at the station closest to my hostel I was welcomed by hammer and sickle emblems prominently featured on the ceiling and walls.

Visiting the Kremlin in Moscow is obviously an essential experience for any traveler to Russia, and although I didn’t quite know what the Kremlin was about until today, I was excited to experience it for myself. After another brief adventure navigating the metro system, I arrived at the entrance to the Kremlin at its west wall. I guess I didn’t quite know what to expect inside, but I was surprised to find a number of ornate Russian orthodox cathedrals. I spent about an hour wandering through Assumption Cathedral, Archangel Cathedral and Annunciation Cathedral. Each cathedral featured bright golden onion domes and whitewashed walls on the exterior, and dimly lit depictions of various Russian orthodox saints painted in red and blue and gold covered the walls. I was surprised at how religious the whole place felt. I always imagined Russia as a place that had eradicated religion and allegiance to God in favor of communism and allegiance to the State. I guess I just wasn’t aware of how much of a religious presence there still is and how deeply rooted Russian culture is in it. My favorite of all the cathedrals was Annunciation Cathedral. I enjoyed slipping into the narrow entrance through the tall wooden doors at the front of the building and exploring the tiny, ornately decorated interior. The exterior was particularly fascinating to me, and I took a series of pictures of the white and gold building glowing in the morning sunlight.

A short walk back through the Kutafya Tower that marks the entrance to the Kremlin, then along the side of the structure towards Red Square, took me to a long line that led to Lenin’s mausoleum. To me, seeing the decades-old remains of Russia’s greatest communist leader is more grotesque than symbolic, but it is an iconic experience in Russia, and I couldn’t pass it up. A pathway to the museum took me past several monuments to Russia’s most famous and revered leaders, and eventually looped back around to the entrance to the mausoleum. Young Slavic men dressed in Russian military uniforms stood stoically at every turn and quietly pointed me to the center of the building. As I circled the dark, silent interior of the building I observed the pale white glow of Lenin’s face and hands in the center of the room. He was dressed in a conservative suit and tie, but was much shorter than I imagined him. Besides that, the remains of the man looked less like a human being than a Maddame Tussade’s wax model, or even a stone carving. It’s interesting to me that Russia still maintains the mausoleum and even (apparently) reveres the man. I wonder at what point the country will decide that it has entirely abandoned communism and finally put the man to rest in the ground somewhere.

The exit to Lenin’s tomb led me straight into the Red Square, and I was excited to finally see St. Basil’s Cathedral. Unfortunately a gigantic temporary stage and bleachers is in the square this week and is blocking the best views of the iconic Cathedral, but I still enjoyed wandering around the immediate perimeter of it and snapping pictures of the wild looking domes on top. The interior of the cathedral really surprised me. I guess I imagined one gigantic room inside with a series of smaller chapels on the edges of the building, but it’s actually a number of different rooms inside; most of them decorated with Russian orthodox artwork similar to what I saw in the cathedrals at the Kremlin. I wandered up a few narrow stone staircases in St. Basil’s, and through stone rooms covered with intricate patterns that resembled vines. The place felt very old and unique, and more like monasteries I’ve visited in Greece than any kind of cathedral I’ve ever been in.

This afternoon I learned the hard way how huge and difficult to navigate Moscow can be. I originally wanted to go to a museum called ‘The Gorky House’ and began walking in the direction I thought it was in. The street I was on must have been twice the size of State Street back home, and was filled with cars rushing by beneath towering Soviet architecture, but despite the size of the street I still had a difficult time locating it on my map of Moscow. To make a long story short, I wandered aimlessly through the outskirts of the city before finally deciding that my efforts trying to decipher the map and Cyrillic street signs were getting me nowhere. Finally I walked all the way back to the metro station nearest to my hotel, but that getting around beneath the city wasn’t any easier. Every dilapidated sign hanging in the dimly lit tunnels is exclusively in Russian. Also, unlike other metro systems, when lines converge at a single station that station has a different name for each line (and, of course, every name is in Russian). Originally I thought that getting completely lost in metro tunnels several hundred feet beneath Moscow was terribly inconvenient and frustrating, but looking back, it was definitely an adventure. I tried to communicate with a few very Slavic-looking police officers stationed in the tunnels (none of whom spoke a word of English), and finally found the metro line that took me to my next Russian adventure.

Sanduny Baths is the oldest bathhouse in Russia (called a ‘banya’ by Russians), and has been operating since 1808. When I consider that 1808 was before the British recognized the United States as an independent country, it really puts the tradition of the Russian bathhouse into perspective. After pulling off all my clothes and covering myself with a linen sheet, I walked into a giant tile-covered room featuring showers, a couple luke-warm pools of water, and plenty of naked Russian men. I began my banya experience by showering up, then observing my new Russian friends in an effort to avoid breaching any kind of banya etiquette. The banya experience is simple enough: visitors spend a few minutes at a time in the ‘parilka’ (steam room), often beating themselves lightly with bundles of birch branches (called ‘venik’), then return to the cooler room and submerse themselves into the pools of water to cool down before returning to the parilka.

As I entered the parilka I was instantly drenched in my own sweat, and sitting for just a few minutes in the room left me light-headed and feeling as if the tips of my extremities were literally cooking. According to my Lonely Planet book, the experience, ‘appears sadomasochistic, and there are theories tying the practice to other masochistic elements of Russian culture’. At the time I assumed the experience was meant to be enjoyable, and I tried to enjoy it as much as possible, but after reading about it in the Lonely Planet book, I definitely agree the banya is a bit sadomasochistic. I returned to the parilka repeatedly, and even beat myself with the birch branches as naked Russian men lounged exhaustedly nearby. Back in the tile-covered room I soaked in the pools of water and watched as the others collapsed into the pool like the polar bear at Hogle Zoo. Several of the Russian men used a long ladle to pour water into a scalding brick furnace in the room, and at one point they combined eucalyptus oil with the water to create a soothing, pleasant aroma in the steamy air.

My final activity of the day was a stark contrast to the sadomasochistic experience of the banya: a visit to the nearby Nikulin Circus. While researching Russia I had read that Russians take their circus very seriously, and I had to experience it first-hand. I was surprised by what I found.

I’ve always thought of attending the circus in America as a very tacky, childish affair. Nonetheless, it’s entertaining to watch parades of elephants and tigers, daring stunt men racing around metal cages in motorcycles, and undignified clowns honking their plastic noses and piling more bodies than anyone would imagine is possible into a tiny car big enough for no one. The Russian circus is very different. Russians tend to be more concerned with maintaining dignity than Americans do, and their circus certainly reflects that. The circus in Russia is very well organized and well presented. It has the feel of a professional acrobatic show, and the event is treated more like a Broadway musical than an American carnival.

The show began with the Russian host introducing a few dignitaries to the crowd, then presenting a skilled trapeze artist. The woman swung back and forth on the trapeze, doing flips in the air while flashing her wide smile for all to see. Later acts included jugglers (including one who juggled several large plastic rings while bouncing a ball on his head), a girl who contorted her body and spun several hula-hoops around each of her limbs, a girl who creatively climbed to the top of a long rope before wrapping herself in it and falling nearly to the bottom, a show with trained animals at the end. The animal show was my favorite part of the event. Two leopards, two black panthers, and three large tigers entered an enclosed ring with their two trainers and performed for the crowd by walking skillfully across narrow beams and jumping between several tall platforms. As I returned to my hotel I was reminded of Sergei and his own leopard, and I actually enjoyed navigating the contorted, confusing tunnels of the Moscow metro.

Paris

I forgot how much I love Europe. Maybe it’s that I tend to be drawn to places that are less civilized; or maybe it’s vague memories of traveling through Europe on a ridiculously tight budget in 2005; subsisting on a diet of cheap grocery store bread and yogurt, sleeping on trains to save money, and sharing hostel rooms with the likes smelly, snoring Romanian men, among many other strange characters. Having an 8 hour layover in Paris today was an opportunity I wasn’t going to mess up, and I came with plans to live lavishly and a budget to match. That made all the difference.

My first item of business after leaving Charles de Gaulle Airport this morning was to spend some quality time at the Musee d’Orsay; Paris’s world renown collection of impressionist art. I spent three days in Paris in 2005, but never made it to the d’Orsay and have wanted to visit it ever since.

I started my tour of the d’Orsay by wandering through a gallery of iconic ballerina pastels by Degas. Further into the museum I spotted a piece titled ‘Le Pont d’Argenteuil’ by Monet that I particularly liked, and a vaguely familiar still life by Cezanne titled ‘Pommes et Oranges’. My favorite piece at the d’Orsay, and probably the most recognizable one at the museum, was a painting of a busy 19th century Parisian street scene titled ‘Bal au Moulin de la Gallette’. It’s interesting to me how a piece of art can capture a moment in time. The idea of painting a crowded city street, for example, seems uninteresting at first, but it was fascinating to me to look for all the details in the painting and to try to imagine what life was like for those people. One of the placards on the wall quoted an impressionist artist as saying that, “Painting is more an impression of an idea than a depiction of an idea. It allows the artist to dream in front of the canvas.” I enjoyed walking past painting after painting and trying to imagine what the artist’s dream was while he was creating it.

Another favorite gallery of mine in the museum was one featuring several works by Van Gogh and Gaughin. A few of the Van Gogh works were instantly recognizable; especially one titled ‘Self Portrait’ painted by Van Gogh in 1889. The Gaughin works were familiar too; although many of them looked similar and I couldn’t remember which was the one I’ve seen all over the place. Most of the Gaughin works were of Tahitian girls. I can only imagine what it would have been like to travel to Tahiti in the 19th centruy, as Gaugin did. Those people must have seemed so exotic and fascinating to him.

I wrapped up my visit to the d’Orsay by taking a quick look around a giant gallery featuring statues made bronze and stone. The marble statues exemplified classic European artwork, but I was most interested in a giant bronze figure titled ‘Saint Michel Terrassant le Dragon”. The statue depicted a strong, powerful warrior covered in armor and heaving a gigantic sword into the air. The emotions of strength, power and fortitude were such a contrast to the delicate ballerinas, peaceful landscapes, and thoughtful portraits depicted in most of the other works in the museum.

Thoroughly satisfied with my visit to the d’Orsay, I took the subway a few stops down to a station called Champ de Mars/Tour Eiffel; the nearest station to Europe’s most iconic travel destination, the Eiffel Tower. Jonny and I visited the Eiffel Tower in 2005 and we experienced everything I wanted to there, but I never got a very good picture of myself in front of the Tower and I wanted to be sure to do that today. After finding a good vantage point a few hundred yards from the structure, I had several different passers-by snap a photo of me. Fortunately I got a couple of shots that included the entire tower and even kept good proportions. I also enjoyed finding unique views of the Tower as I circled the thing, including one from a secluded, flower-filled park to the west of the tower.

Another quick subway ride took me to the banks of the Seine River just across from Notre Dame cathedral. After another photo-shooting spree I wandered to the back side of the cathedral, admiring the flying buttresses and other icons of gothic architecture as I walked, then headed across a bridge to I’lle St-Louis, a small island surrounded by the Seine.

Eating fine French cuisine at a café on the banks of the Seine was definitely the highlight of my day. Le Flore en I’lle, the café I ate at, featured a menu of fine French dishes, sumptuous Berthillon ice cream for which I’lle St-Louis is famous, views of Notre Dame and nearby street performers, and a prohibitively long line leading to the ice cream bar. After perusing the menu I settled on the Souris d’Agneau Confite au cumin, prunaux, amandes, gratin dauphinois (preserved lamb with cumin, prunes, almonds and dauphine-style creamed potatoes). The food was incredible. When I saw my waiter bring the dish out it looked like something I’d imagine eating in a lavish 18th century French chateau in the countryside. The gigantic leg of lamb was drenched in a French sauce made of wine and cumin, with perfectly tender meat that fell easily off the bone. Creamy potatoes covered in cheese accompanied the entree, and prunes, almonds and tomatoes to the side of my plate soaked in the sauce as I ate. Afterwards I treated myself to three scoops of famous Berthillon ice cream – one scoop each of wild strawberry, honey nougat and black chocolate.

After taking time to relax and enjoy my lunch I headed to the St-Michel/Notre Dame subway station and back to Charles de Gaulle. My experience in Paris was more than I hoped for – and certainly more than I thought I’d experience during a brief layover allowing me only four hours in the city. Someday I’ll come back to Paris and see Moulin Rouge, shop for Parisian antiques, and wander through the Latin Quarter. Until then, though, I’ll look forward to visiting a few other exciting destinations. St. Basil’s Cathedral is something that has always seemed intensely exotic and creative to me; it’ll be a pretty good thrill to see it right in front of me tomorrow morning.

Ana Kakenga

I slept in today, which was nice for a change after two consecutive days of waking up before 6:00 to try to catch the sunrise. Since I didn’t have my scooter to rush around the island with, I decided it would be a good idea to hike along the coast North of Hanga Roa for an hour or two. Steve and Debbie, the couple from my hotel who I explored Ranu Raraku with, told me about a cave they visited on that side of the island that was made entirely of lava rock. Hiking to the lava cave was a perfect way to spend my morning.

Cruising around the island on the scooter was definitely convenient, but it actually was nice just to spend a few hours walking to get a feel for things. I enjoyed watching horses graze in the distance and seeing the gigantic waves come into shore and crash against the black lava rocks below. The weather was perfect today, and after hiking for about an hour along a rugged dirt road, I finally came to a cairns that indicated the entrance to the lava cave.

When I first saw the opening to the cave I doubted I was in the right place because it was so small. A hole in the ground about two feet wide and three feet tall was all there was to crawl into, and after briefly looking around to see if there was any other entrance I decided to just go for it. Squeezing myself into the tiny hole was a bit of challenge, but the biggest challenge was finding my way around in the dark. I didn’t pack a flashlight with me, so all I had was the light from my iPod screen to guide me through the cave. The iPod couldn’t light up the whole cave in front of me, but if I pointed it directly at my feet as I crouched down I could see the just enough of the ground to walk. Fortunately the cave is only about a hundred feet long, and after a minute or two of walking with the iPod, there was enough light from the openings on the other end that I didn’t need it anymore.

The lava cave is called Ana Kakenga, but is also known as ‘The Cave of Two Windows’. At the end of the cave opposite from the tiny rocky entrance, two openings in the rock about six feet square let in bright beams of light from the outside and provide spectacular views of the coastline. I loved being the only one in the dark, mysterious lava cave and staring out of the openings down towering black lava cliffs, and across the bright blue ocean. I found a ledge next to one of the openings that was perfect for setting my camera on, so I took a few minutes to set the timer and take a picture of myself at the end of the cave.

I had to hike fast to make it back to Hanga Roa because I had arranged a scuba diving trip for 2:30 in the afternoon and left the cave at a little after 1:30. Fortunately I made to Mike’s Rapa Diving Center right at 2:31, and within minutes was in a small boat cruising out to the ocean. I had read in my guide book that the ocean water at Easter Island is known for being incredibly clear, so I was excited to try out the diving here. I descended into the water with a local guide and two Chilean travelers and spent about 45 minutes exploring Easter Island’s underwater world. The coral at the bottom of the ocean was shaped differently than any I’ve seen before, and I spotted a few spiny sea urchins and several long, thin fish that looked like a cross between a barracuda and an eel. Our guide led us through a couple of small caves at the bottom of the ocean, which was way fun, but to be perfectly honest, I’ve been to much better diving sites before. I definitely wouldn’t come to Easter Island just to dive, but it was a fun way to spend an afternoon, and it’s always great to get a feel for what diving is like in different parts of the world.

A couple of other travelers I met told me I absolutely had to see a ceremonial dance show while on Easter Island, so tonight I headed to a tiny venue on the coast that features a show called Matato’a. I loved Matato’a. For an hour and a half I watched from the second row as elaborately dressed Polynesian dancers performed animated war dances and hula-style dances to the beat of a rock band in the background that played guitars as well as ukuleles and bongo drums. I only had one small objection to the show: the male performers were very scantily dressed, and I felt a bit uncomfortable when they turned around to reveal completely exposed bottoms (except for a small piece of twine that held together a tiny loincloth). Altogether though, it was a great way to get a feel for the local music and culture, and the perfect way to spend my last day at Easter Island.

Rano Kau

I crawled out of bed at 5:45 this morning to make a second attempt at catching the sunrise at Ahu Tongariki. Driving along the south coast of the island in the pitch black night was thrilling and intimidating at the same time. It’s a thrill to me to be half-way around the world exploring an obscure island on my own, and it’s liberating at the same time to feel like I can go anywhere I want, anytime, and do whatever I want, but part of me just doesn’t trust that scooter and I felt uncomfortable cruising on a dark, pothole-filled road with only a dim headlight to guide me. After a half-hour of driving alone through the darkness, I finally arrived at Tongariki, and might have missed it if I hadn’t spotted the small dirt parking lot to the side of the road.

It turned out that 6:30 was the perfect time to arrive at Tongariki. While driving towards the East end of the island I noticed the sky slowly grow lighter, and I was afraid that I might miss the sunrise, but fortunately I arrived just as the sun began to create an orange glow from below the horizon. I love sunrises, especially when they’re at the incredible places I’ve visited while traveling. Some of my favorite moments while traveling have been catching the sunrise in Venice; Borobudur, Indonesia; the Taj Mahal; Petra; Machu Picchu; Ayers Rock; and Mount Everest. I think I’ll have to add Ahu Tongariki to that list. As the sun slowly rose towards the horizon, the sky turned into a bright orange, that faded into yellow and blue. The clouds above the horizon were lit up with pink light, and as the sun rose over some cliffs behind Tongariki, the moai cast long shadows. I got some great photos of the moai silhouetted against the colorful sky, as well as a few of the bright landscape and long shadows.

Since Rano Raraku is so close to Tongariki, I decided I had to catch it in the favorable morning light. The site was apparently closed and nobody was at the entrance to welcome visitors, but I noticed a couple people wandering through the moai on the hillside, so I went ahead and enjoyed the scenery with them. The couple, two French travelers, helped me get some great pictures of myself with the moai as a backdrop, and I enjoyed spending an hour or so wandering through the deserted place. Again, some of my favorite moments while traveling are the times I’ve been able to visit some of the most phenomenal sites in the world when they are completely deserted. Conveniently enough, those times usually happen to coincide with the sunrise (am I the only traveler who’s willing to wake up a little earlier for a much more incredible experience!?) Wandering through the moai along the deserted hillside was otherworldly. As I snapped a few pictures of the bright green grass, perfectly blue sky, and the gigantic, mysterious moai, I was reminded of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, and felt like I could have been wandering through the movie.

On my way back to the South end of the island, I stopped at a site called Ahu Vinapu, where several moai on the coast lay toppled onto the grass. Ahu Vinapu is well known for the way its builders constructed the ahu; the stones fit together perfectly just like ancient Incan architecture. According to my Lonely Planet book, some anthropologists speculated that islanders sailed East from Easter Island to mainland South America, where they influenced the cultures of the people there. It’s interesting to consider that the Incan stone structures in Peru that fit together so perfectly may have been inspired by the indigenous people of Easter Island.

As the morning wound down I became very conscious of the fact that I only had my scooter rental until 1:00, and made sure to visit the most distant, inaccessible places around town before turning it back in. I headed straight for Orongo, the ceremonial village that sits at the very top of the Ranu Kau volcanic crater (walking up the dirt switchbacks that lead to the top of the towering volcano would have been a death march). Orongo was interesting, and contained a few stone structures representing what the ancient homes of the indigenous people would have looked like, but my favorite part of the visit was the end of the trail around the village, which offered an incredible view of the ocean and two small islands to the West, the gigantic crater to the East, and a few intricate petroglyphs carved on nearby rocks. The Rano Kau crater must be one of the most scenic natural landscapes I’ve ever seen, and watching the sun set over the crater yesterday was nice, but seeing the bright colors of the grass and ponds down below was probably even better. I snapped a few photos side by side so that I can stitch them into a panorama in Photoshop… I’ve never done that before, but it’ll be interesting to experiment with.

The last site I visited on my cherished scooter was a couple of moai on the far end of town. The moai were impressive, but compared to what I’ve already seen at Ahu Tongariki and Ranu Raraku, they weren’t anything mind-blowing. The scenery was nice though, with the wide expanse of ocean as a backdrop, and I enjoyed snapping a few more photos of the landscape. One of the moai had giant inlaid eyes made out of coral; the only such moai I’ve seen on the island. Archeologists speculate that all the moai once had such eyes… but to be honest, I like the look of the ‘blind’ moai much better.

I returned my scooter exactly at 1:00, then collapsed on my bed, exhausted from a day that was already filled with exploring the greatest sites of Easter Island. After napping for a few hours I woke up and began to catch up in my travel journal, but was pleasantly interrupted by a man from Orange County who invited me to go to dinner with him and his wife.

The couple was named Linda and Braulio, and are originally from Shanghai and Mexico City, respectively. We wandered down to a restaurant overlooking the coast, and as the sun set outside the windows behind us the conversation quickly turned to our favorite travel stories. I told Braulio all about nearly getting scammed by an angry taxi driver in Lima, riding a dilapidated train in the outskirts of Mumbai and getting fined and (I believe) scammed by the staff patrolling the cars, and meeting a scammer in Bangkok who approached me and attempted a scam word-for-word that I had already read about in my Lonely Planet book, among many other stories. Braulio told me about going to a pub crawl in Rome, getting lost on the way home, then wandering through the city looking for his hotel until 6:30 in the morning; and getting invited to a bar in Athens and enticed to buy drinks for some pretty girls… only to find that the staff of the bar demanded an exorbitant amount of money for the alcohol and the company. After hearing those stories I’ve realized that it probably does me a lot of good that I don’t visit bars while traveling. Linda and Braulio were great company, and made for intelligent, interesting conversation. It’s always great to meet up with fascinating people while traveling, and that dinner was a perfect way to round out the day.

Ranu Raraku

I headed back to Anakena Beach this morning. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is trying to catch the various sites I visit in just the right light for photos. The sky was crystal clear this morning and I got to Anakena at about 9:00; since the beach is on the East side of the island, it was the perfect time for photos. According to Rapa Nui legend, Anakena Beach is where the Polynesian king, Hotu Matua, landed with the original settlers of the island. On a small hill overlooking the beach there stands a single moai that was re-erected by Thor Heyerdahl (the Kon Tiki guy) with the help of a few islanders. Anakena is also famous on the island for its powdery white sand and favorable surf. The beach was completely deserted when I arrived, and it was the perfect opportunity to snap a few photos of the moai on the coast. I spent an hour or so circling the moai and snapping picture after picture; enjoying the soft white sand under my bare feet and the warm, breezy, crystal clear weather.

Until late this morning I had been impressed with what I had seen on Easter Island, but to be perfectly honest, it hadn’t quite lived up to my expectations. That changed pretty quickly when I visited Rano Raraku this afternoon. Rano Raraku is a small, dormant volcano on the southeast end of the island that the Rapa Nui people used as a quarry to extract lava rock to carve the moai out of. Apparently the facial features of the moai were carved before being completely extracted, then the moai would be removed and transported to other parts of the island. The result is that there are several giant moai at Ranu Raraku that are only partially carved out of the rock. The real attraction at Rano Raraku, though, is the 40+ standing moai scattered across the face of the volcano and inside the crater. I walked slowly through narrow paths leading past the moai, observing each facial expression and the tilts that each one had naturally taken on. Most moai looked pensive and stoic, although a few sported wide smiles. One moai had tipped over to an angle about 45 degrees to the ground, and the narrow pathway led directly beneath his gigantic eyes and nose. While at Ranu Raraku I happened to bump into a 50ish couple named Steve and Debbie, who are staying at my hotel, and spent the rest of my time there exploring with them. After wandering through the moai on the front side of the volcano we ventured up the slope and into the large crater on the other side. The crater is filled with plants and a gigantic lake in the middle, and on one edge of the crater sit several large moai. I enjoyed seeing a few more moai, but my favorite part of the crater was hiking to the top on the East end of it, where we had a fantastic view of Ahu Tongariki down below.

After a quick second visit to Ahu Tongariki with Steve and Debbie I stopped at the Papa Vaka Petroglyphs, a giant basalt slab in the ground covered with carvings of tuna, sharks, turtles, and canoes. Further inland I stopped at Ahu Akivi, an ahu with seven moai. Ahu Akivi is unique for several reasons. First, it is the only ahu that isn’t on the coast (or at least the only one I that I know of). Also, it is the only ahu to feature moai facing the sea. Very little is known about any of the ahu or moai on Easter Island, but one notable observation about Ahu Akivi is that the moai are oriented such that on the summer and winter solstices they are exactly facing the sunset. On my way back to the main road I stopped at Puna Pau, a quarry used by the ancient islanders to obtain red lava rock for moai topknots, called pukao. It was interesting to me to see a handful of giant topknots scattered around, but I was more impressed with the view of Hanga Roa from the top of the hill at Puna Pau. After spending the past couple of days exploring the island, it’s nice to get a view from above and see the little world I’ve been wandering around in.

Earlier today Steve and Debbie recommended that I visit a small recreation of an ancient Rapa Nui airport, so I decided to make that my last stop of the day. I knew roughly where it was from what they told me, so I cruised past Hanga Roa on my scooter and up the edge of a hill on the opposite side of the airport. I wasn’t completely sure that I was headed in the right direction, so I was a little discouraged that the road kept climbing higher and higher up the edge of the hill, with no village in sight. After driving high enough that Hanga Roa was a few thousand feet below, I finally noticed the beginning of a trailhead on the side of the road. I figured that I might not find the village I was looking for, but at least I’d have some other serendipitous adventure. I walked only fifteen or twenty feet up the trail before coming to the edge of a massive volcanic crater. The crater was at least a thousand feet across and was covered in bright green grass with hundreds of tiny ponds in the base of the crater hundreds of feet below. The opposite end of the crater had eroded away such that a giant opening revealed the wide blue expanse of ocean stretching south of the island. I recognized the sight from a few pictures I had seen around town, and realized I was at the top of the gigantic volcano Rano Kau. I hadn’t planned on visiting Rano Kau today, but the sight was incredibly scenic, and I took about a half-hour to hike along the edge of the crater and enjoy the sweeping views.

After hiking back to the trailhead I rode my scooter to the top of the road, only a quarter-mile or so away. As it turned out, I had been on the right road all along, and the village, called ‘Orongo’, was right at the top. Unfortunately the village had just closed for the day, but I happened to bump into Julia and Katarina, the two Polish girls I met yesterday, and followed them back into town for dinner. We ate at a place on the coast called ‘Au Bout du Monde’, and sat at a table that gave us a perfect view of the sun setting over the ocean as we ate. I ordered shrimp with rice, bananas, and a thick ginger sauce, and talked for an hour or so with Julia and Katarina. Naturally, when I’m traveling I tend to meet a lot of other people who love to travel, and we all shared some of our favorite travel stories. Julia and Katarina told me about their recent visit to the Galapagos islands, and I told them about visits to Angkor Wat, Bhutan, and Kruger National Park. We also shared some awkward and embarrassing travel stories; I told them about waking up at 4:30 this morning to catch the sunrise on the other end of the island (an hour too early due to me misunderstanding what time-zone I was in), only to realize halfway there that I didn’t have enough gas to make it, then turning around and going back to sleep at the hotel.

Easter Island

I reluctantly left my lavish room at the San Cristobal Tower at 6:00 this morning and headed to the Santiago Airport to catch my flight to Easter Island. Fortunately it was easy enough to doze off on the airplane, and after napping for a few hours, watching ‘The Blind Side’, and blasting a few tunes on my iPod, I had arrived at Easter Island.

Before planning my trip out here I really had no idea how far away Easter Island is from the mainland. A flight from takes just over five hours; about the amount of time to fly from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Easter Island is halfway between Chile and Tahiti, and attracts many travelers making round-the-world trips, as makes a fantastic stop mid-way through the Pacific.

I love the feeling right when I get off the plane on a tropical island. I guess I haven’t felt it too many times before… I can remember feeling it in Ko Samui, Thaiand and in Honolulu about fifteen years ago. There’s just something about leaving the plane and feeling the warm, humid, tropical air for the first time. As I walked down the tarmac towards the terminal I was excited to experience the beaches, diving, and warm climate of the South Pacific, and I smiled as I reminded myself of the reason I came all the way out here… to see the gigantic stone heads; also known as ‘moai’.

After checking into the modest ‘Residencial Martin y Anita’, I rented a motorized scooter and hurried out of Hanga Roa, the island’s only town, to spend the rest of the day exploring. I loved riding that scooter today. Even though I felt like Lloyd Christmas from ‘Dumb and Dumber’, it was just such a blast to ride along the deserted coast of the island, enjoying the scenery and scanning the landscape for my first moai sightings. I’m surprised by how beautiful the scenery of Easter Island is. I guess I never really thought about it before, but the island is beautiful. It reminds me a little of the English countryside; mile after mile of rolling green hills passed by on my left, and to my right cliffs of black lava rock plunged into the deep blue ocean. Easter Island is also filled with horses that roam freely. I don’t know whether the horses are wild or not, but every few miles I’d pass a herd of brown horses feeding on the grass or galloping along the coast. The scenery was just idyllic; between the rolling green hills, perfectly blue ocean, exotic lava rock cliffs, and herds of roaming horses, I felt like I could have been in a dream… and the dream was only made sweeter by discovering groups of ancient moai scattered along the coast.

Just a few miles outside Hanga Roa I stopped at a site called ‘Ahu Akahanga’; a site where six giant moai lie toppled on their faces. Very little is known about the moai or the ahu (giant platforms used to support the moai), but for some reason nearly all moai face inland. At Ahu Akhanga two different platforms about a quarter-mile apart feature a few toppled moai, with another toppled moai between the two at the edge of a small bay. I met a couple Polish girls who happened to be at Ahu Akahanga at the same time as me, and we took turns taking photos for each other in front of the ahu. I can only imagine what that place must have been like hundreds of years ago when the moai were still standing.

Further down the road I stopped at a site called Ahu Tongariki; easily my favorite part of the day. Ahu Tongariki features a gigantic ahu in immaculate condition with fifteen moai standing on top of it. Each moai is slightly different; some shorter than others, and with different sized noses or other facial features. My favorite of the fifteen was one that had a gigantic topknot on his head made of red lava rock. According to my Lonely Planet book, moai with topknots were fairly rare, and it’s believed that the knot represents a hair style that was popular among the original inhabitants of the island. The topknots weigh about as much as two elephants, but somehow the islanders were able to raise them onto the heads of the moai. Apparently most of the moai at Ahu Tongariki had topknots at one time, but in 1960 a tsunami hit the ahu, scattering the moai and their topknots. In 1992 a Japanese company re-erected the moai at Ahu Tongariki to restore the site to what it once was; although they only put a topknot on one of the moai.

A few more minutes on my scooter took me to Anakena Beach, a beach famous on Easter Island for it’s powdery white sand and for a small ahu with about five standing moai on it. I was lucky for most of the day and got perfectly warm, sunny weather, but unfortunately my luck turned at Anakena Beach and a relentless storm started pouring rain. I was so excited to actually be at Anakena Beach that I circled the moai a few times in the rain and walked the length of the beach. When I was sufficiently soaked I found a small shelter from the rain: the overhang of a tin shed used by national park employees. Waiting under the tin roof was easy, as it gave me a chance to look through all my favorite pictures from the day, but after about a half-hour I decided I needed to figure out what I was going to do to escape the storm for good. With seriously limited options, I decided to drive twenty minutes back to Hanga Roa in the pouring rain. Although the weather wasn’t ideal, I enjoyed taking a different route through the countryside and seeing as much of the island as possible.

After a hot shower and about another hour looking through my photos, I headed to a tiny café called ‘Ariki o Te Pana’ for a bite to eat. My Lonely Planet book recommended the empanadas, and I wasn’t let down. I ordered a seafood empanada and got a crispy, flaky pastry filled with fresh seafood and a spicy Chilean sauce. Altogether the day has been a success, even despite the rainstorm. I’ve seen some of the best moai of Easter Island, got some incredible pictures, and still have a whole lot more to explore. I’m excited to spend the next four days here hiking, exploring, and scuba diving. Everything about Easter Island is so unique and I’m excited to discover it all for myself.