Today was pretty much perfect, in an entirely different way from the perfection of Bora Bora. Bora Bora is a manufactured paradise, made perfect for tourists (and honeymooners especially) - granted, they have the gift of awesome weather and an amazing setting around a sinking volcano, but the perfection comes from the setting and the service, not the saccharine cultural overlay that seems to have only minimal basis in history.
Easter Island, by contrast, is perfectly remote and very nearly totally desolate, thanks to the deforestation the inhabitants caused while using trees to move their crazy statue heads from the quarry to opposite sides of the island. Only seven thousand people live on the island, and it's nearly 2000km from the nearest inhabited land (Pitcairn Island, which isn't exactly a bustling metropolis) and well over 2000km from mainland Chile. So they're really isolated, and you can feel it in how empty the tourist locations are; only 70,000 tourists make it here per year, and we're hitting the low season, which means that the hotels aren't anywhere close to full and the tour guides have plenty of availability.
This, it turns out, worked entirely to our advantage today. After sleeping for almost ten hours last night (and still having to set an alarm to get out of bed - dawn isn't until 8:30 here, which is crazy), we met up with our guide for today's tour. It turns out that he was possibly the best thing of the entire trip - his name is Marcus, and he's a Swede who came here on a backpacking trip, came back, fell in love with a local woman, and stayed put. He's now learned Rapa Nui, which was super helpful in negotiating the local politics (more on that in a moment). He gave me and Joann a private tour of some of the best spots on the island - the most famous statue locations (the ahu, or ceremonial platforms where the moai (statues) were placed), the quarry where they were carved (and where hundreds still sit in varying forms of completion), and the beach where legend has it that the first king landed.
All of this was completely, desolately gorgeous. It rained a bit off and on all day, which added to the atmosphere. There was also a bit of local drama to add some spice; a self-appointed group of local revolutionaries has 'overthrown' the park ranger service and is now controlling access to everything, a state of affairs that the Chilean government seems to be tolerating during the low season. This is sort of good for us, since it meant we didn't have to buy the sixty dollar park pass, but it seems to be untenable in the long term. But Marcus knows them all (and everyone else on the island), and since their beef is with the Chilean government and recent Chilean immigrants rather than with the lone Swede on the island, we were totally fine.
So we spent the day touring, along with a lunch break at the beach, where I had a pork dish that completely shocked the cook - apparently tourists only order the empanadas, but since I can't eat wheat, I ordered meat. When I ordered, she made some joke about me being a Rapa Nui warrior; then she came out again later to say (in Spanish) that she was sorry it was taking so long, but she was cooking it really thoroughly so my tourist stomach could handle it. Hahahaha. But it turned out to be the most amazingly, simply delicious thing I've had in awhile, so if I get trichinosis from it, so be it.
Marcus ended the day by singing to us on the beach, and we enjoyed it so much that we booked him again for tomorrow. And then we came back to the hotel, rested a bit (or, in my case, went crazy because the internet wasn't working), went out and grabbed an early dinner (ceviche and half a bottle of wine for me, chicken stir fry and local beer for Joann), and then speed-walked back to the hotel as dusk was turning to darkness and the feral dogs started baying and snapping at each other.
And now I must sleep; we have another tour tomorrow, and then we're going to freshen up and have dinner before going to the airport for yet another short red-eye flight (in economy this time - but I have a lot of Chilean wine to look forward to at the end of it). Goodnight!
Easter Island, by contrast, is perfectly remote and very nearly totally desolate, thanks to the deforestation the inhabitants caused while using trees to move their crazy statue heads from the quarry to opposite sides of the island. Only seven thousand people live on the island, and it's nearly 2000km from the nearest inhabited land (Pitcairn Island, which isn't exactly a bustling metropolis) and well over 2000km from mainland Chile. So they're really isolated, and you can feel it in how empty the tourist locations are; only 70,000 tourists make it here per year, and we're hitting the low season, which means that the hotels aren't anywhere close to full and the tour guides have plenty of availability.
This, it turns out, worked entirely to our advantage today. After sleeping for almost ten hours last night (and still having to set an alarm to get out of bed - dawn isn't until 8:30 here, which is crazy), we met up with our guide for today's tour. It turns out that he was possibly the best thing of the entire trip - his name is Marcus, and he's a Swede who came here on a backpacking trip, came back, fell in love with a local woman, and stayed put. He's now learned Rapa Nui, which was super helpful in negotiating the local politics (more on that in a moment). He gave me and Joann a private tour of some of the best spots on the island - the most famous statue locations (the ahu, or ceremonial platforms where the moai (statues) were placed), the quarry where they were carved (and where hundreds still sit in varying forms of completion), and the beach where legend has it that the first king landed.
All of this was completely, desolately gorgeous. It rained a bit off and on all day, which added to the atmosphere. There was also a bit of local drama to add some spice; a self-appointed group of local revolutionaries has 'overthrown' the park ranger service and is now controlling access to everything, a state of affairs that the Chilean government seems to be tolerating during the low season. This is sort of good for us, since it meant we didn't have to buy the sixty dollar park pass, but it seems to be untenable in the long term. But Marcus knows them all (and everyone else on the island), and since their beef is with the Chilean government and recent Chilean immigrants rather than with the lone Swede on the island, we were totally fine.
So we spent the day touring, along with a lunch break at the beach, where I had a pork dish that completely shocked the cook - apparently tourists only order the empanadas, but since I can't eat wheat, I ordered meat. When I ordered, she made some joke about me being a Rapa Nui warrior; then she came out again later to say (in Spanish) that she was sorry it was taking so long, but she was cooking it really thoroughly so my tourist stomach could handle it. Hahahaha. But it turned out to be the most amazingly, simply delicious thing I've had in awhile, so if I get trichinosis from it, so be it.
Marcus ended the day by singing to us on the beach, and we enjoyed it so much that we booked him again for tomorrow. And then we came back to the hotel, rested a bit (or, in my case, went crazy because the internet wasn't working), went out and grabbed an early dinner (ceviche and half a bottle of wine for me, chicken stir fry and local beer for Joann), and then speed-walked back to the hotel as dusk was turning to darkness and the feral dogs started baying and snapping at each other.
And now I must sleep; we have another tour tomorrow, and then we're going to freshen up and have dinner before going to the airport for yet another short red-eye flight (in economy this time - but I have a lot of Chilean wine to look forward to at the end of it). Goodnight!
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