Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Easter Island, Isla de Pascua, Rapa Nui!
Today is our last day of 4 in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on an
Chilean island, 3700km away from mainland! Here's the low down on
what James and I have been up to here, after arriving in Santiago on
15th June, being hounded by taxi touts who are always our 'friends',
and then leaving for this island, one of the most remote places on
this earth:
SANTIAGO
* Sucked in!: Taxi touts must've seen us coming! After almost
12hours on a plane from New Zealand, I arrive in Santiago to be
hounded by loads of middle aged men calling 'taxi madam', 'taxi
lady', 'taxi friend'! I'm not your friend, you're about to rip me
off! So James and I started walking through this pushy crowd, until
James and this guy exchanged smiles. 'Oh good, i thought, someone
ames knew'. Little did we know, we were just about to be mugged for
our money, talk about daylight robbery! '40' they said, so we said
fine. Half the journey later, they ask for the money up front, but
give us two receipts for 40 000 Chilean Pesos. Amd I asked, is this
one each, they smile sweetly and say 'si'. (I didn't know the rate,
but James confirms we've just handed over 80 pounds for a 20minute
journey!! No kidding!) We're fuming at this stage, and one of the
three guys jumps into the seat behind us and starts yapping away.
Not a good time to be asking us if we wanted a lift the next day to
the airport for Easter Island, and making small talk, asking James
and I if we're married!! Two of the guys then jump out, and have the
cheek to ask me if I'll give him moey for coffee... How do you say
'no' at this stage without being rude?! It sure took a lot of
holding back! After they left, I started chatting to the driver,
explaining 80 000pesos was quite a lot for a taxi back. He seemed
like a decent guy, and said 'no no, it is for tomorrow airport as
well'. Tomorrow??!! We don't want a lift tomorrow thanks! We told
him we wanted our 40 000pesos back, and he understood and gave it
back to us. Words can't describe just how angry we were, we felt so
cheated! When we arrived at the hostel, chit chat with the owner
revealed we should have only paid 10 000 for a taxi or 4 000 for a
bus. Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
RAPA NUI
* Postman Pats! Popular style of rental car on the Island. Will post a picture of it as soon as I can! Quality! Check out the picture of David in his Postman Pat! Fetching! ;)
* 4x4 I had a go at driving on the 'wrong' side of the road here. Bit strange, but good! Bumpy roads, with lots of muddy pools! We were the proud owners of the muddiest jeep on the island!
* Food Usual problems being a vegetarian, but mulitiplied by about 1000! I ate salad, bread and chips for 3 days, lunch and dinner! But surprisingly, even that went wrong when my 'posh' dinner salad came out with only tomatoes lettuce and cucumber! was not happy, especially as they promised so much! However, the fresh fruit juices were amazing! Pina, mango, naranja! Bueno!
* Moai - Amazing! These stone statues are pretty cool, and you can see them across the whole island. Most are facing inland, to protect the indigenous Rapa Nuians (mainly Polnesian) back in the day. They were actually knocked down, some through destruction, others through earthquakes and tsunami type weather, but more recently many have been restored back to their original glory. These statues, mainly 2metrtes plus were all built out of a volcano on the island, and then carried across to specified locations.
* Cultural show We went to see the local Rapa Nuians tell the story of their culture through music and dance. This was a fab night, and even funnier when James was pulled up to dance!
* The only Rupali in Rapa Nui! Exciting moment when i realised i was probably the only 'Rupali' on the island, and so the only Rupali in about a 4000km radius, right in the heart f the Pacific Ocean!!! How impressive is that!!
* Beach Not that great, especially as it was raining! Although it would have been fantastic when sunny as the moai there have a fabulous backdrop.
* Sunrise, or not! When you're told sunrise is at 6:15am, you get there just before, well you don't want to miss it do you? There was no chance of that, as we got up at 5:15am, left the hostel by 5:40 and made it down to the beach for 6:05. Pretty good going i was thinking, it's still pretty dark. So there we were sat in the car waiting (it was very cold). &:15 came by, 6:20, 6:25... What if the sun doesn't rise today?!! As time went on we began to believe that more and more, by this time it was 7am! Finall, the sky slowly lit up at 7:45am!!! I'm not a morning person so you'll understand how much i would've appreciated the extra time in bed!! Hovever, as this was a particularly cloudy morning we couldn't even see a proper sunrise, but we did manage to get some great photos of the moai agaisnt a stormy blue sky. Fabulous!
* Pushy girls! Sucked in Part 2! We had met these girls who were trying to get a lift in the opposite direction to us! Bu the next day wemet them, again in the locl market. Well, to be fair, James met them! Apparently they walked straight passed me to get to James while he was alone, and asked him if they could get a lift to the beach! So he took the chicken option, and said he 'had to ask the boss'!! Yeah, that's rioght, blame it on me! Thnaks for that! So after some deliberation, we took them with us. We spent the day with them, but then the little mouthy one came and asked me where James was? Think she thought he'd be a softert bet than me! She asked if they could spend the day driving around with us! 'We don't have any plans,' she said!! Sorry hun, we do! There was no one else at the beach because of the bad weather so we decided to drop the little bratty one and her two mates back into town! Then we went off for our drive!
Moral of the story? Never speak to strangers!!
- comments