On-the-Road Tales

In the morning, I heard a truck out back. Since there are only woods behind the house Iit registered as strange but I did not investigate further. Bad mistake. I opened all the windows to air the place a bit from the musty, tropical air. I sat on the porch for breakfast – Lucia mixed it up everyday for something different – breads, eggs, fruits. I stepped back into my bathroom for something or another and was aghast to find several cockroaches hopping about. Blahhhh! I boltted onto the porch where Lucia was shooing more around with the broom. Aghh. Apparently that truck like sound was the island fumigation. And well since the houses are not sprayed, it is a natural refuge for the slimy buggars. So they flocked into, on and around the house to basically die. Ugh – I was mortified, They are not super big and scary like florida ones but still kinda vile. I rushed around closing my windows and sat at the table trying to avoid them crawling over my feet. I was coping until one dropped from the overhang above right onto my toast and headed straight for my lap. I nearly flipped the table trying to get up and avoid a lap pet. One of the girls living in the house looked at me like I was ridiculous because it was just a cockroach but hey, not accustomed to them in my space. So my appetite over – I headed into town.

Met up with my friend Dominique whom I had met in Argentina along with another new friend from Chile. Anneke. We went to find some massive turtles supposed swimming in the harbor but no joy. There is a film about Rapa Nui directed by Kevin Costner, based loosely on some legends that they show during the week. We went to check it out, interesting – nice to see in the setting but a little stupid to see supposed locals running around shouting in English. We went for cocktails to a swanky bar afterwards and all made fools of ourselves at one point when, surprise, a cockroach jumped down onto the couch and we squealed and bolted. They got a good laugh out of the silly, scared of an insect tourists.

Lucia was waiting up for me when I returned since I was late – nice to have someone watching out for me! Her family makes jewelry and shell crafts to sell at the local tourist spots. Every night, sitting on the porch, I learned how to punch holes in several types of shells, string up some necklaces designs, watched them work with feathers and sand carved wooden statues. Local craft 101 – just up my alley! Loved it. Alicia made me a lovely pair of earrings and braclet. Great reminders on my time on the isle.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 11:29 pm 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.