Last day on la Isla de Pascua
Hola! Just a quickie from Rapa Nui on our last full day here. We´ve enjoyed two full days of tours with excellent weather. Today it rained in the morning, but since we´re just puttering around, it didn´t affect our plans. Many people here are Catholic, so most of the shops are closed while they´re at church in the morning and then only open for a few hours in the afternoon. Seems that most of the men are participating in soccer games today -- or else watching them drinking beer.
We were able to enjoy the various sites of the island, including crawling through some of the caves formed by the volcanic activity and climbing craters. The sea is a spectacular blue, and it was amazing to see the 200+ degree view (not quite 360 because we were not quite high enough) of the ocean horizon. Wow. The earth does look like it just drops off beyond the horizon of the ocean when you look at it from that perspective.
We learned that Easter Island is considered a suburb of Valpo, so calls there are local, even though it´s several thousand miles. The politics surrounding the island, how it was treated by the mainland, etc. are really interesting. The Chileans treated the island pretty crappy for a long time, until as recent as the 1960s, but a documentary film exposed the conditions and embarassed the Chilean government into putting more resources into the island. Most folks here are Rapa Nui (polynesian) and speak Rapa (which is quite similar to Tahitian or Hawai´ian), Spanish and often some English. We were told that it is largely a matriarchal society with large, large families. Lots of cars and motorcross bikes; even more horses. Horses are everywhere and are a common form of transportation. Not too many paved roads; one "highway" (= passable paved road, one lane each way) and a few in town, and that´s it. I would completely recommend anyone who comes to Chile to make the effort to come here to Easter Island, especially if it´s winter. It´s cheaper here then and definitely less crowded (although it is not cheap here by South American standards; our room is very basic with a private bath and not much else, and we are paying $20 each a night). I cannot imagine what it´s like in the height of the summer.
Anyway, I guess I could ramble on more and more about Easter Island, but I need to get off-line in a minute. Tomorrow, we depart for a hop, skip and a jump back to Santiago and on to Buenos Aires. A few more hops, skips and jumps, and I am back in Washington on Saturday just in time to start school on Monday!!! Hard to believe it has gone so quickly, but I am quite glad that I got a real vacation this summer. And I even got a tan.
Hope all is well at home.
We were able to enjoy the various sites of the island, including crawling through some of the caves formed by the volcanic activity and climbing craters. The sea is a spectacular blue, and it was amazing to see the 200+ degree view (not quite 360 because we were not quite high enough) of the ocean horizon. Wow. The earth does look like it just drops off beyond the horizon of the ocean when you look at it from that perspective.
We learned that Easter Island is considered a suburb of Valpo, so calls there are local, even though it´s several thousand miles. The politics surrounding the island, how it was treated by the mainland, etc. are really interesting. The Chileans treated the island pretty crappy for a long time, until as recent as the 1960s, but a documentary film exposed the conditions and embarassed the Chilean government into putting more resources into the island. Most folks here are Rapa Nui (polynesian) and speak Rapa (which is quite similar to Tahitian or Hawai´ian), Spanish and often some English. We were told that it is largely a matriarchal society with large, large families. Lots of cars and motorcross bikes; even more horses. Horses are everywhere and are a common form of transportation. Not too many paved roads; one "highway" (= passable paved road, one lane each way) and a few in town, and that´s it. I would completely recommend anyone who comes to Chile to make the effort to come here to Easter Island, especially if it´s winter. It´s cheaper here then and definitely less crowded (although it is not cheap here by South American standards; our room is very basic with a private bath and not much else, and we are paying $20 each a night). I cannot imagine what it´s like in the height of the summer.
Anyway, I guess I could ramble on more and more about Easter Island, but I need to get off-line in a minute. Tomorrow, we depart for a hop, skip and a jump back to Santiago and on to Buenos Aires. A few more hops, skips and jumps, and I am back in Washington on Saturday just in time to start school on Monday!!! Hard to believe it has gone so quickly, but I am quite glad that I got a real vacation this summer. And I even got a tan.
Hope all is well at home.
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