Ahh… Paradise
Chile – Rapa Nui (Easter Island) – Tongariki
When we were first planning this year, we each listed a few things we really wanted to see, which we called “pillars.” One of Lindsey’s pillars was Rapa Nui or Easter Island. This was a really exciting week because we spent most of it on Rapa Nui. It is seriously remote – 3,700 km (2,300 miles) from mainland Chile and the closest populated island is 2,075 km (1,289 miles) away and only has 50 people. The remoteness doesn’t quite sink in until you fly on a Dreamliner for five and a half hours and every time you look out the window all you see is blue ocean. But the long trip was well worth it. Everything about it is paradise. The weather is 65 degrees every day with scattered clouds (and it only rains when you are inside… or maybe that was just our good luck) – not too hot and not too cold. There are enough tourists to have an infrastructure, but not enough to create crowds. And best of all, it’s the perfect mix of history and outdoor adventure (similar to our first pillar, Machu Picchu). Just perfect.
1. Go
- Plane – 3,771 km (2,343 miles). A smooth 5.5 hour flight over the Pacific from Santiago to Rapa Nui.
- Minibus – 100 km. We took a full day tour of Rapa Nui that crossed the island twice.
- Taxi – 39 km. To the airport in Santiago, then from the airport in Hanga Roa. We also took a taxi to the start of a hike (which dropped the hiking distance from 20 to 15 miles).
- Foot – 136,000 steps in 7 days (approx. 68 miles)
2. See
We spent the first few days of this week in Santiago. Lindsey finally felt well enough to sightsee. We took the funicular to the top of Cerro San Crisobal (the same hill that Pat has been running up). Although the weather was a little gloomy, the view was about as good as it gets – even on sunny days the mountains are often blocked by smog.
Chile – Santiago – Cerro San Cristobal
Rapa Nui was everything we wanted and more. The island itself has a population of around 6,000 people and an area of 117 square kilometers. The majority of inhabitants live in the small town of Hanga Roa, leaving the rest of the island free for hiking and exploring.
We spent our first day visiting Orongo, an ancient village thought to be used by the Birdman cult. It sits on the edge of a spectacular crater marsh (pictured below). There are a few small islets off shore and they would hold a competition to choose a new leader each year. The competitors would race down the cliff and swim to the islet, then try to find the first bird egg of the season and swim back to the island with it. They would sometimes stay for weeks before finding an egg.
Chile – Rapa Nui (Easter Island) – Rano Kau
We spent our second day taking a long hike north of town, stopping to see several moai (statues), ahu (platforms), and lava tube caves. Across the island, the moai face inland, watching over villages. The only ones currently standing have been re-erected. For each restored ahu with standing moai, there are dozens with toppled moai. Some accounts say that they were toppled on purpose, while others say they were gently laid down when the religion was abandoned for the Birdman cult. Still others say that it was tsunamis. The pukao or topknots (they look like red hats) where made from lightweight, red, volcanic stone.
Our third day was a full day island tour. It was a bit of a dreary, cold day, but we got lucky because it only rained when we were indoors (thankfully, since we made a seriously rookie mistake and forgot our rain jackets that day). The most spectacular locations were Rano Raraku and Tongariki. Rano Raraku is a quarry on the side of a volcano where the moai were carved. The volcano side is littered with unfinished or abandoned moai that were too large to move. Most are buried up to their shoulders with only their heads sticking out of the ground. It is a bazar feeling walking between these huge carvings. They are a bit menacing and goofy at the same time.
Tongariki is the most impressive Ahu on the island with fifteen standing moai. It’s straight out of a postcard. Similar to most other Ahu, it’s right on the water facing inland. This site was restored in the 1990’s by a Japanese crane owner who wanted to show how useful cranes could be.
For our fourth day, we hiked to the highest point on the island, Maunga Terevaka at 507 meters. Although it’s not a very high peak, it is the 12th highest peak in the world by isolation. It provided spectacular 360 degree views of the island and surrounding ocean.
Chile – Rapa Nui (Easter Island) – View from Maunga Terevaka
3. Eat
Since everything needs to be flown to the island, the prices are sky high. As a result, we mostly cooked in. We did have a delicious “box lunch” on our full day tour. We’re not sure why they called it a box lunch because it wasn’t in a box at all. It was a three course Polynesian meal – soup, rice and chicken, and bananas with syrup. In addition, we had some incredible empanadas when we first arrived. They were bigger than a hand, deep fried, and filled with seafood.
4. Drink
Again, the prices were too high to enjoy much, but we did sample the local beer – an unfiltered pale ale. It was the perfect thing after a 15 mile hike.
5. Sleep
We stayed at a guesthouse right on the waterfront. We could hear the waves crashing while we fell asleep. Most importantly, we had a kitchen which saved us loads of cash.
Chile – Rapa Nui (Easter Island) – Outside our guesthouse Te’ora
6. Move
Pat went on a few spectacular runs on the island. We also had three big hiking days (10 to 15 miles each), which resulted in one of our highest weekly step counts for the whole trip (136,000 steps). We had three days around 30,000 steps each. This left Lindsey very footsore since she hadn’t moved much the week before when she was sick (lowest weekly step count of the entire trip at 58,000 steps).
Check out Pat’s CADENCE Week 15 post (coming soon) for details about this week.
7. Etcetera
We’re pretty sure that Lindsey’s cold last week was actually the flu. She was in bed for three solid days and took a whole week before she felt back to normal.
And just for good measure, let’s throw in a couple sunset shots from paradise.
Check out our Flickr album to see all our photos from this week.
Nomadic Cadence 
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