On-the-Road Tales

After all sorts of years wondering about Easter Island, I was finally seated on a Lan Chile 767 ready to travel there. Too exciting. The aircraft was class. Had 30 movies to choose from in my seatback so the time flew. After 5 hours and several thousand miles, we approached one of the most remotest places on earth in the middle of the pacific, Rapa Nui the original name or Isla de Pascua in spanish. The water was a cobalt blue speckled with dark patches which were coral reefs. ( I know I keep using all these crazy colors to define water but I am trying to differentiate – they really all have a unique tint) We touched down on the 12000 foot runway built courtesy of NASA. Easter Island is an alternate landing site for the space shuttle in the event their is inclimate weather elsewhere so the runway is massive. We arrived about noon and descended down the airstairs. No jetways in most of the world. It was humid and sticky, tropical indeed. Entered the airport, no customs or immigration so I grabbed my bags and headed outside. I choose to stay with a family at Mahina Taku Taku Georgia and Lucia was waiting for me with a lovely smelling flower leia. We grabbed a taxi and headed to her home in Tahai just north of the main town.

I settled in, had some fabulous fresh fruit home grown, met some family and had a nap. In the afternoon, I headed to the museum. Absolutely fascinating collection of information. Some of the stone remnants as well as history, tools, geological developments etc. They had replicas of some tablets that have been found on the island. These contained writing in a form not seen in the rest of the world, type of heiroglyphs where the tablet had to be turned to be read on each line. No other polynesian cultures are known to have had a written language.

Walked to the Tahai Moai or statues. Awesome. The entire island is considered to be an open air museum. You pay one fee and have entrance to everything. I was so beat, I headed back to get an early night. Lucia’s house reminds me of Sally’s. There is a constant never ending stream of people that are in and out all hours of the day and night so there was always something going on. I met some friends of the family that evening and chitchatted getting accustomed to the accent. Lucias family spoke Rapa Nui’, the native tongue, but they were kind enough to address me in spanish since my polynesian is not very good!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2007 at 12:05 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.