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02 August 2010
Easter Island, Chile.
I arrive on the island in the morning. I am officially in Chile and consequently in South America. This small piece of land is the most isolated place on the planet. 4000Kms from the closest land. And full of positive reviews. Let's see what the future holds.
It's raining cats and dogs... That is strange but apparently the climate has changed a lot during the last few years, as the locals will tell me in the course of my stay. I am tired from my flight from Tahiti so I decide to take a nice afternoon siesta nap! There is no point in walking in the rain anyway. In the evening I stroll to the centre of the town, not more than 10 minutes walk away from my hotel, which is one of the furthest out of town! I walked into an internet café and as I was ready to leave, I came across a girl from Zurich (Cecilia) and a couple from France & Germany. We starting chatting and decided to go for dinner together. The couple had been to a nice restaurant before so they led the way. First dinner for me in South America, so I spoilt myself with a ceviche, fish cooked in lemon and lime juice. The others are tired and have early start the following day, so after dinner we call it a night. I arrange to meet Cecilia the following evening for drinks. With nothing much else to do in the island on a Sunday, I go back to my place and read my book. Relaxing times...
3rd august 2010
The following day I got up late so I decided to take it easy and spend most of the time updating my blog and taking a walk to discover the surroundings.
The island is quite expensive, with the local fruit and vegetable surprisingly leading the race. It is a strange situation on this place. Less than 5000 inhabitants, yet there are social differences! Some want to achieve an independence from Chile, others are happy with the current state. The island has no port, cargo ships have to moor away and small boats carry all the cargo to the island. It is not their preferred method of transport due to time delay and inability to predict accurate arrival time of the goods. With almost everything being imported by air from Chile the dependency is complete. Tourism and hospitality are the only things they can offer. So there is an abundance of gift shops, restaurants and cafés.
Walking around the island is quite nice, the weather has improved and there is no rain. It's windy though and I can see why surfing is on the top of the sports list here. I found a diving school and spent time with the owner discussing the sites and options for me to dive in the area. It's more expensive than Thailand and at similar prices to Tahiti. Unfortunately I would not get an opportunity to dive since the next day I would have caught a cold that would stay with me for four weeks! Too bad.
4th august 2010
Sleeping until 1pm today, I don't feel great. I have caught a cold from last night. Slowing down mode! Coffee, reading, waiting for the evening to arrive to get to see Cecilia. Unfortunately this did not happen since after her day long tour she was exhausted so she stayed in. I went alone to this restaurant which advertised "music y vino". Obviously I like both so that was the catch! I had tuna and tried their local beer (what happened to the wine I don't know!) which I liked a lot. Waiting for the group to arrive I got to know the owner and mentioned to him that I am Greek. Unlike the previous countries I have been, being Greek has become an ever increasing advantage, with many people having warm feelings towards them. It makes me happy too since I has lost my pride for my origin lately. It's pisco sour time, pisco with lime and sugar, and only one glass after I am already feeling "relaxed". As expected the group was late, so the second glass was soon in my hand! When they finally arrived it was a pleasant surprise. One of them was a very good guitarist and his vocal abilities were good too. They only played for an hour but by the end I was ready to go home too, so it was good timing. What was not a good idea was to try and find a new route to my hotel at 1am. It took me an hour to get back and I had a few hairy moments with wild dogs. Aha, I forgot to mention that the island is full of them....! So hopefully I learnt my lesson not to play Christopher Columbus at night... baah, probably not...
5th August
Today I was going to go on a tour but I found out that the whole day around the island one is taking place the following day, so I booked myself onto it. Another chilling day walking around, drinking more coffee (it's an addiction...) and chatting to local people trying to find out the way this place really works. I noticed a lot of families during my stay here, which can only be good news to a place this small. Talking to the owner of a café, a very positive girl called Maria Jose I realised another aspect of being isolated. Her café was burnt down by accident two weeks before and the poor girl was trying to find some bulb sockets to replace the damaged ones on the patio. There were none in stock in the whole island! Another interesting thing was that the whole island is uninsurable, due to it's distance from the shore! Maria used to live in Santiago, came to the island 5 years back and fell in love with a rapa nui guy. They had a son together, they split up, she stayed and he went to Santiago! Switching places! But the most interesting thing I found out through her is about land ownership! She inherited land and a house for free solely because her son got it from his father. No deeds, no lawyers, simple. However it has it's drawbacks... The museum is inaccessible today because the owner of the land; which obviously is NOT the local government, does not allow access to people. Coming from Europe one has to laugh. Maybe not so in greets though where farmers block the national highway as they please!
6th august
Early start today. The tour leaves at 9.30 am and I need to prepare some lunch too! Sounds challenging but somehow I managed, I won't starve! The tour guide was recommended to me by Cecilia as being very knowledgeable, taking his time to give info and answering loads of questions. He is from France but been living here for 25 years. I am happy I can understand what he says in both languages! Thumbs up for both Richard and Alex! The tour takes us around the island, which is not big anyway, to some really awesome scenery. There are always high waves crashing on the beaches of this island, they have nowhere else to stop anyway, so the place is a surfer's paradise. Beautiful. The moais (you know, these really big and serious looking statues!) are really impressive. They weigh anything from 50 to 70 tonnes and up to 12 mtr high. Yet, when in 1962 the tsunami; formed from the earthquakeee which strucSantiagooo at a force of 9.Richterrr scale, reached the beach at a speed of 800km/hr, the moais were thrown 20metersrs inland and had to be repositioned as part of the restoration projects. The waves reached Hawaii and ended up in Japan! Get the geography right and that's what I called sheer nature's power. Another interesting fact we learnt which is not widely known is that the original colour of the moais is earth yellow. Their current black colour comes from the effect of time. Yet all the miniature souvenir moais are black! Deception.
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