Visiting Easter Island - Rapa Nui

I woke up at 3am, rolled out of bed, zipped up my bag and dialled an uber. At 3.30am I was at the airport in the most enormous queue I’ve ever seen for a bag drop. It took a full hour! The check-in people were trying to prioritise people going to Easter Island, except that was everyone in the queue. A local was having a conversation directly over my head for 45 minutes with another local directly behind me. Luckily my cold wasn’t so bad by now.

The flight was five hours. I was sitting to the most chaotic mother and daughter I’ve ever seen travelling together. The daughter’s iphone case, just the case, somehow ended up down the plane aisle and had to be returned by the attendant. I had the mother’s jacket, bag and pillow all on/under my seat. Their stuff just went absolutely everywhere!

The plane map showed that we were getting close to the tiny pinprick in the middle of the ocean, our destination. The island is so small it doesn’t even register on the world map.

We touched down and everyone piled off the plane onto the tarmac, running in random directions trying to take photos. I guess for Chilean people this is quite an exciting destination! I’ve never seen such chaos at an airport – people crouched taking selfies literally all around the plane and no a single groundstaff doing a thing about it.

There was no customs, just a bag carousel and a girl about my age holding a sign with my name on it. She gave me a lei of local flowers. We drove to the hostel, which took about 5 minutes. The entire town is just a few streets and it only had 8000 residents on the island!

The hostel is literally 10 metres away from the sea. Just a road and a small grass patch separates our room from huge swells rolling off the Pacific smashing onto the volcanic rock. There are deckchairs with hibiscus print out of the front and our room has two private bathrooms and a private kitchen. In my room is a guy from Slovenia and another older guy in his 40s who hasn’t spoken yet but looks Chilean.

The same girl checked me in and told me a good tour to book for the morning. I started my day by wandering along the coast. I walked past town, right up to the closest Moai, the Tahai, where there are 6 in a row along the beach. I took some photos although it was a bit overcast and continued on the museum. It was actually fantastic, fully bilingual, with really interesting information in it. New Zealand was mentioned so many times I felt like I learnt a bit about my own island. And so many of the words are the same between Maori and Rapa Nui – for example, Maori, tapu, mana, whare, the numbers... These cultures are literally thousands of kilometres apart but they clearly are from the same origin.

I walked back through the town, stopping to buy some water and a packet of chips. Back at the hostel I was so relaxed on the deckchairs I almost fell asleep. But I forced myself to get up again, this time heading east past the airport to look for a cave. I found a cave but I don’t think it was the right one. There were heaps of wild horses on the path and I was a bit scared of one that kept trying to bite the others, so I went the long way around only to find heaps of rats in the long grass. Nevertheless, there were some really nice views and a few more Moai.

I made an early dinner at 5pm because Rapa Nui is two hours behind Chile so my body thought it was dinner time. Then I watched the sun go down from just outside the hostel. The girl who checked me in said it was amazing from Tahai, but that was a 20 minute walk and I was tired. It was a big golden sunset and there was a man fishing, shirtless, with his bare hands on a rock. People rode past on horses, bareback. A big almost-full moon rose behind us as I headed back to the hostel.

Rapa Nui Day Tour

I woke up at 8am confused – it was only dawn and pink sky was peaking through the curtains. The Slovenian guy literally rolled out of bed, got dressed and was gone in 10 minutes. The other Chilean guy had a shower so I began my breakfast of coffee, avocado and banana.

But then I was in a rush, we had to be at the tour office at 9.10am. The Chilean guy spoke slightly more English than I did Spanish and we worked out we were on the same tour. I had about 10 minutes for a shower and to rush out the door. But I should’ve know it was island time. My new Chilean friend and I got split with the language groups. In the English one was two German girls with mixed American/English accents, and two Italian couples separately on their honeymoons. The Italians were all dressed the same. The tour guide was this guy dressed in swandri, trackpants and gumboots and he literally looked like a Te Kuiti or Taumaraunui local. He was a full Rapa Nui descendent and grew up with the language so I talked to him a lot.

Our first stop was Rano Rarku volcano, the quarry where they used to make the Moai.

The first part was just the crator lake, filled with totara (!) reeds, the same as lake Titicaca. But on the other side were the iconic Moai, sticking out of the hill at random angles. We walked around the site for maybe an hour. I saw the one that is now an emoji and many more impressive ones – one 21 metres high, some still being carved... It was really amazing to see. After the walk there was a souvenaire shop. I said I had no room in my bag for souvenaires (which is true), so the guide suggested we sit down. Then he stroked my hair and asked if I was enjoying the tour. I immediately changed the conversation and joined the German girls the second they reappeared!

The next stop was Ahu Tongariki, a site with 15 Moai on the coast in a row. They had been restored and the graves under them excavated. They were right next to a wild coastline, all black lava like the rest of Rapa Nui – the whole island was created from three different volcanoes erupting. The following sites we saw, the Moai were left toppled.

We also saw the Te Pito Kura ‘magical’ or ‘magnetic’ rock of Easter Island. Where some people claimed compasses didn’t work. But we couldn’t test the theory because some tourists had ruined it for everyone else by posting photos of them sitting on it, now no one can touch it.

Next was Anakena Beach, the only white sand beach of the island and probable landing spot of the Rapa Nui people. This almost looked fake with it’s palm trees and white sand. However, the whole of Easter Island used to be covered with an endemic palm tree until the Rapa Nui cut them all down. Not a single one is left! Just fossilised roots. It was too windy at the beach but some Chilean people were swimming, I guess this is their version of a tropical holiday. The water did have that turquoise look to it and the sand was soft and white.

I had made friends with the two Germans, Roxy and Nandi and after the tour we all went to the Tahai area to watch the sunset with a beer. Another German girl joined called Joanna, they had met her earlier. Turns out she had got with the tour guide who had been hitting on me all day! Very funny, it seems he is a bit of a player.

I walked home as the last light crackled through the clouds and cooked dinner. It’s just me and the Chilean man today.

Bicycling around Rapa Nui

I had a sleep in until 9am and then set out to met Roxy at 10am at the tour place. I was running ten minutes late, but she was even later so it was fine. Island time. We said goodbye to Joanna and Nandi who planned to spend the day shopping in town.

We headed north through town, immediately getting lost and asking locals for directions to Maunga Tere Vaka. It had been raining that morning and the weather was still stormy and humid. On all the uphill roads I was sweating like crazy, needing to blow my nose and clear my throat. It wasn’t pretty.

A nice dog adopted us, literally running alongside our bikes the whole way out of town. Suddenly we were on a country road and there were three dogs at least the size of a German shepard in every property that ran out at us (mainly our dog mamacita) snarling viciously. I was scared and so was our dog, skitting in front of my wheels so I bumped her twice. Some roadworkers saw us and shooed the dogs away. But every 20 metres another three dogs would appear. It was like a nightmare.

Eventually the road turned into a dirt track and we were alone in the long grass, volcanos on either side. We realised Mamacita the dog was actually male. We wondered which volcano was Tere Vaka, the highest point we were looking for. Roxy told me she was on Easter Island because her father who had died when she was 13 had visited here and she wanted to walk in his footsteps. She thought that the dog might be his spirit, leading us toward where we were meant to go. After 30 minutes or so we arrived at a park entrance and as if to prove Roxy right, the dog simply disappeared into thin air.

We had a long conversation with one park ranger, a young Rapa Nui man, who said we couldn’t go in  the caves if it was raining and the weather was too bad to climb Tere Vaka. Indeed, we couldn’t actually see the top of it in the clouds. We went to a second young park ranger who said we should absolutely climb Tere Vaka. Not sure what to do, we gave the weather more time to clear.

The first monument we saw was 7 Moai facing the sea, the only ones to do so. They represented the 7 explorers who first set out to find Rapa Nui from Polynesia based on a king’s vision. The story mirrored NZ’s first waka. Then we went to find the caves.

We got lost twice, ran into many wild horses and bounced around on the lava-ridden road. Eventually we found ‘the banana cave’, where Rapa Nui used to store water. The caves were massive and there were heaps of them around a central pit.

At the next major stop we were almost the only ones on the huge isolated coast. Cliffs of 30 metres or more dropped beneath us. Wild horses roamed the ruins. Roxy said it looked like the Scottish highlands. This was the best preserved village on the island, you could see all the boat houses’ sites laid out on the ground, the chicken coops, the gardens. On the Ahu there were several Moai, all toppled. One head rested on the cliff down to the sea. Because it was so beautiful we stopped and sat on the cliff for a while. The only people we saw was a daughter and old man, who tripped on some lava and fell about two metres.

The path had now turned into technical downhill mountain biking over lava. It was okay to ride on but I only had three gears and no helmet so we were cautious. We stopped at some more caves, a lava tunnel that went 20 metres and got quite narrow, making us crawl on our knees in the mud. It emerged next to a white, dead tree. Roxy needed the toilet so we rounded a corner to another cave looking at the ocean. The most spectacular view of black cliffs and turquiose churning waves appeared.

At the next stop it started pouring with rain. There was a conveniently placed shelter with some broken seats we put our bikes. We saw a nice view and were about to leave when I saw a cave entrance. It was no more than 80cm wide. We debated going in there, eventually I crawled down and saw nothing but darkness and an even narrower tunnel. The rain cleared and a family appeared. They said it was the right way so I went ahead. I saw some light in front of me – a person’s torch! So we crawled through and the cave opened up into a wide space with two separate holes in the cliff side. It was quite magical!

The last stop of our adventure was another Moai. One of the dogs from sunset last night appeared. We sat on the cliff and watched the ocean for awhile. Then we biked another 10 minutes and were back at the museum.

We met Nandi and Joanna nearby at Tahai – it was 5.30pm already! I rushed to take the bike back for 6pm. Then Roxy tried dubbing me on her bike to return hers. It worked and we travelled around the coast for awhile but my bum was so sore I said I’d walk and meet her and the others at Tia Berta 2’s.

There I had a massive tuna and cheese empanada with a beer, the others had various drinks/food. We watched the limited sunset go down igniting the clouds behind one of the ocean pools with palm trees.

Last day on Rapa Nui

I had packed my bags the night before and set my alarm for 7.30am to make sure I had enough time to climb the volcano to Orongo. Despite this I didn’t really set out until 9am, I was talking to the nice hostal lady and drinking coffee. I had a very brisk walk to the base of the volcano, where I saw the German’s tour go whizzing past as I entered the track. It was a very pretty walk, through a model village planted with actual crops, white stones lining the track and orange flowered trees. It was drizzling on and off and the track began to climb, so the walk got hot!

I marched up the volcano in 35 minutes, reaching the lookout at 10am exactly. After a long grassy uphill with amazing views of the rain and sunshine sweeping across the island below the ground dropped away to a huge crator. It was amazing! There was a wetland in the bottom creating marshy islands and purple flowers adorned the steep cliffs.

I had another 10 minute walk to Orongo past some very aggressive cows, the village of the Birdman cult. They had actual stone houses here – probably needed because it was very windy up there on the edge of the island! A nice park ranger started talking to me, showing me the petrogliphs of the birdman I would’ve otherwise missed. The German girls waved to me from the otherside of the village but I couldn’t walk across to them. There were incredible views over the ocean with it’s rain clouds, rainbows and streaming sunshine.

The girl at the hostel was going to drive me to the airport at 12.30 so I had to hurry! I started rushing down the road thinking how great it would be to hitchhike to the village. I looked over my shoulder at an approaching car, it slowed to a stop. The man didn’t speak English but we managed to have a conversation, he was going to Hangi Roa. I jumped in the front seat of his red ute. He was really lovely, a Rapa Nui man with bright blue eyes who had lived in Santiago for ten years but returned to the island.

I was going to get out the car at the road which turned off to the coast, but when I said I was going to Hostal Tojika he said he was too! Turns out his brother was staying there, so he literally drove me to the door! His brother had a drone set up and they went out to do some photography on the coast.

I had time to get changed, repack slightly and cook all the remaining food I had brought over. The lovely hostal lady drove me to the airport and gave me a Moai necklace as a parting gift. Joanna was already at the airport and we waited for almost an hour and half for the others to show up. I had checked in last night and the website took so long to load with the slow internet, when it finally did I was sitting in Premium Business row 1! I thought it was a website malfunction, but they checked me in with no questions, putting the priority sticker on my bag. The other girls were very jealous. Between this and the hitchhiker lift I thought I was having some serious good luck today!

I boarded priority through the cute thatched roof airport. My seat was so spacious and I got offered champagne when I sat down. There was a menu with gourmet options and a wine list of different Chilean and Argentian regions.