Easter Island

Cluster!

Right ho...onto the most exotic destination of the year - Easter Island (Picasa link). Courtsey of British Airways, we were in possession of a ticket from Lima to Miami that allowed us to stop in Easter Island, Lima, and Guayaquil before catching the final flight home. All this spread out over three months, and for next to nothing - gotta love mileage programs!

The flight from Lima to Easter Island was almost six hours long - all over the Pacific - which served to heighten the remoteness of the location. Unbeknownst to us, our co-passenger was the First Lady of Chile, and were lucky to catch a beautiful Rapa Nui dance performance on the tarmac upon landing. After checking into our guesthouse, we headed out for a walk along the water and our first sightings of the stone statues that have made Easter Island so famous - the Moai. The history of the settlement and subsequent decline of the island make for fascinating reading, especially Jared Diamond's piece on the island history and its subsequent decline.

Looks like something out of 'Lost'

The next morning we took it easy and after a big breakfast, walked past the airport, and began climbing the volcano called Hanga Roa. The summit held special importance in the local culture as a religious site and is the location of a well restored village, Orongo, occupied by a select few. Well, the shamans certainly chose well - imagine a couple of houses perched above 300 foot cliffs that drop straight to the ocean below. On the other side, steep crater walls that drop to the crater lake! You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a better location. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the volcano and then headed back to town. The next day we picked up a motor-bike and headed out for a tour around the island. After catching a few fallen Moai, we reached the highlight of the island - Rano Raraku. This was a volcano that also functioned as the quarry from which all the Moai were quarried. Both, the inner crater (along with the requisite stunning crater lake) and the outer slopes are dotted with over 400 Moai, in various stages of completion. The setting is spectacular and we spent a good chunk of time weaving our way through the various statues. From there it was onto the one and only beach on the island. At the end of the day, there's only so many statues you can look at and we were on a Pacific island. The sand was fine, the water warm, and we enjoyed a well deserved break from the ruins.

That's a big head - not mine!

Our last and final day on the island involved walking along the shore and catching the remaining Moai that had eluded us until then. Our flight to Lima was delayed by two hours and I mention it just to give you an idea of the pace of life here. Upon enquiring as to the cause of the delay, we were told that the flight from Tahiti was delayed by two hours and there were a couple of passenger on that flight who were connecting onto our flight. If we didn't wait for them, they'd be stuck on the island for two more days, for that's when the next flight to Lima was!

- Ashish