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.