Jun 2009

For the first time in a fair few days, we had the luxury of not setting an alarm this morning. It may not seem like much, but when you’ve changed time zones on a regular basis and your body is totally confused as to what time it is, its small things like this that keep you from total burnout.

In the event, we didn’t sleep too late, but late enough to miss breakfast, so we took a leisurely couple of hours and decided to have a look at the main shopping street in Santiago, Paseo Ahumada.

To get there, we needed to get the metro from our hostel to Universiad De Chile, a couple of stops away. Now we’ve been dab hands at doing this all around the world, but it’s usually not a major problem as most places have automated ticket machines. However, to our dismay, not in Santiago!

So, removing years of dust off my GCSE Spanish, which I last did in 1988, we approached the ticket counter and managed to get two tickets! Fair enough, I only had to remember the word for two (dos) but I like to make major achievements out of small efforts!!

So, having worked out the vagaries of the ticket barrier system (and by working out I mean the attendant had to show us what hole to stick the ticket in!) we arrived at the stop and headed out into the Santiago populous.

Santiago is a busy, busy place. The last time we were in such a densely populated shopping street was in Shanghai in February! So it was an, albeit small, shock to the system. But we quickly readjusted to city life, and headed up the street, stopping in McDonalds for a bite to eat and giving me chance to further explore my inadequacies in Spanish. It would appear that the Spanish for a double cheeseburger meal is “una” and then wave your finger pointedly at a picture of a double cheeseburger meal! If only my GCSE had been this easy, I would have got a grade A no problem (instead of failing it!). And if only the food had been edible, we would have been happy!

Walking up the main street again, stopping in several shops and finally being able to buy the camcorder tape that had eluded me since Australia, we arrived in Plaza De Armas.

Straight away, we felt immediately like we were in South America, possibly for the very first time since arriving yesterday.

The whole square had an undeniably Spanish feel to it, with grand architecture reminiscent of squares in Barcelona (he says randomly picking the only major Spanish city he’s been to!).

Although it seemed like Spain, it also seemed like a Spain from years ago. Poor subject matter I know, but this was probably summed up by the exterior of an Adult Cinema we passed.

It was this blend of typical Spanish architecture with a slightly older, battered feeling to the outlying buildings which made the area so distinctive.

From Plaza De Armas, we headed briefly into a shopping mall, enabling me to eye up and price up a Chilean football shirt. Definitely going to be a purchase later in the week I think, if the money holds up!

And then, not wanting to do too much on the first day, preferring to have a rest at the hostel, we headed back to the metro system. Again, my prowess at Spanish came in handy as we purchased the two tickets! And we headed to the entrance barriers, cocksure as to our knowledge at where to stick the tickets! Unfortunately, the barriers here were completely different and none of us had the sense to look where the big yellow arrow was telling us to insert them! So, for the second time in a row, we needed the attendant to show us the way and, mildly embarrassed at the lines of people behind us, we jumped quickly onto a train and got away from there!

Safely tucked up in our room, where no-one would need to show us where to stick a ticket, we played out the rest of a day in a battle of wits with the unstable internet connection and generally took it easy. The only semi-difficult thing left to do was buy a couple of coffees from reception. But, putting my acquired knowledge to the test, it was easy. So if you’re ever in Santiago and need a couple of caffeine beverages, the correct phrase is :

“Dos” point point “Por Favour!”

Getting up early, having the last of our magnificent breakfasts at the hotel, and getting our free transfer back to the airport, we were given yet another leaving necklace; this time a little shell with a white feather sticking out of it! Again, a nice touch and leaves you thinking highly of a place when you leave.

We took in our last views of Easter Island,

and then went through security control into the departure lounge.

Having just found, inspected and bought a T-shirt from a shop, we heard a loudspeaker announcement in Spanish, with my name inescapably mixed into the phrase. Not having a clue what had been said, we went back to the security control and identified ourselves. And the security guard just said rather curtly “Wait here” and left us.

All sorts of things were going through our minds at this stage.

Had we committed some off-roading violation in the 4x4?

Had our credit card transaction for the hotel been declined after we left, and they were holding us for non-payment of a hotel bill?

Had the 30 foot Moai I’d stolen and disguised cunningly as a toothbrush in my rucksack been discovered?

After a ten minute wait, a representative from LAN (the airline we were travelling on) came up to us and asked for our boarding passes back. At this stage, it really was becoming squeaky bum time!

And then, having checked our names and passports, she announced that we had received a free upgrade to BUSINESS CLASS!!!!

In all the years we have been flying (thirteen to be precise as we were quite old before we took our first flight) we have never, never been upgraded! So, suffice to say, we were ecstatically happy at the prospect. The waiting plane had never looked so good!

So, when the call to board began, we ignored the “tourist/ economy class” line and headed straight through the VIP section (ok so it was only a case of heading to the right of the barrier instead of the left but you get the idea!). And instead of being on row 24 in a seat with just about enough room to squeeze my knees in, we were in row 2 in a brand new Business Class seat with fully retractable bed seats, a 17 inch LCD monitor, sipping complimentary soft drinks delivered in proper glasses, watching the plebs in Poor Class trundle through to the back of the plane! One or two of them looked in our general direction, but we studiously avoided eye contact with them; after all it just doesn’t do to fraternise with the lower classes!

So, stretching out in the seven feet of space the seats had (and yes I did measure it!), we took off from Easter Island. As soon the plane had reached cruising altitude, our personal flight attendants presented us with our menus and wine lists for luncheon, where we both selected the Steak with New Potatoes followed by Crème Caramel with Sauce de Chocolate! And so they lay down our tablecloths, delivered our fine cutlery, served our excellent meal on the finest plates, and invited us to select from a range of breads. The meal was easily restaurant standard, and we would have been happy paying for something equivalent on the ground. And of course, the meal was accompanied nicely with a complimentary beer, the wine list not being up to our exacting standards! When we had finished dining, the flight attendants then dealt with Poor Class, wheeling the trolleys of barley digestible swill quickly past us, lest we were inconvenienced by the foul stench of both the food and the commoners behind our rear curtain!

So, our fine dining complete, we put the seats down into the fully horizontal bed position, and positioning our pillows and quilts, settled down to a mixture of watching Watchmen on our 17 inch screens and listening to various audio tracks on our padded headphones, drowning out the sounds of cattle and misery from the Poor Class transients.

All too briefly, after a four hour flight, it was over. We caught our first ever views of continental South America, along with our first views of the Andes mountains from the plane as we descended.

And then, disembarking before Poor Class (it just doesn’t do to be seen travelling with such people on Terra Firma), we picked up our luggage, were in a taxi in a blink of an eye, and were heading to Santiago.

The sunset reflecting on the snow covered Andes was an unbelievable sight. The snow reflected back as a pink glow, and was a totally wonderful way of seeing South America for the first time.

And finally, for the first time in our lives, the correct answer to the age old question

“Where are the Andes”

was not

“At the end of your wristies!”

but was

“Just there – through the taxi window! Them pink things!!”

Pulling up at our hostel in the centre of Santiago, which on first impressions seems pretty good, we had time to nip out for something eat. Using the old “KFC as indicator of how expensive a country is” method, we quickly deduced that the cost of living in Chile is very cheap; the cheapest for us since Asia. For example, you can buy fries and a drink for 300 pesos, the equivalent of 33p in the UK!

So, suitably fed on the first hot evening meal we had eaten in nine days since leaving New Zealand, we retired to our chambers to reflect on our earlier introduction to polite society and to contemplate the start of our South American adventures!

We had the luxury of a day off today. We had toyed with the idea last night of hiring the 4x4 for another day, but had come to the conclusion that we would have been just revisiting areas we had already seen by doing so.

So, off we went back onto the main/ only street in Hanga Roa, and dropped off one, slightly soiled Grand Vitara back to the hire depot.

They obviously must expect them to come back in such a condition, as the guy didn’t bat an eyelid; for us, though, if there had been a carwash on the island I think we would have used it before returning the vehicle!

Refusing a lift back to the hotel, we decided instead to walk back, taking copious amounts of photographs of, what is, just a small street with very little going on. So I now present to you the highlights of Hanga Roa and therefore Easter Island’s commercial centre.

Reaching the hotel,

we took an opportunity to grab some more photos of the reading room and carvings dotted around it, before spending the rest of the day relaxing and packing our rucksacks.

It really is a wonderful place to stay, (with the Muri Retreat on the Cook Islands, its probably been the best place we’ve stayed on our entire travels), and we feel so relaxed and at home here that it’s hard to think we will probably never manage to get back.

And the same can be said for Easter Island as a whole. Even with the increased tourism that has occurred in recent years, it still retains a feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world. The Moai are amazing, and the scenery of the island itself is quite magical. By hiring the 4x4, we had the opportunity to do things at our own pace, and often without having to fight past hordes of other tourists to see things. And the off-roading was extreme to say the least!

Around 9pm tonight we had the unique experience of hearing and seeing our plane for tomorrow land, and then take off to Tahiti. We knew, from our previous flight that it would be landing there later that night, picking up a new load of passengers, and then be coming back to take us away tomorrow!

So, tomorrow morning we leave here at 10:45am and catch the flight to continental South America; specifically Santiago in Chile. This will be the last continent on our journey, taking in Chile, Argentina and Peru (as well as briefly passing into Brazil and Uruguay if everything goes according to plan) and we’ll be spending just over a month here before flying home. So, although all our instincts are telling us the trip is nearing an end, we still have over 5 weeks left which normally would be one full year’s annual leave entitlement! So, not quite over just yet!

Today we did the rest of our sightseeing in Easter Island, before we hand the 4x4 back tomorrow.

Starting with another brilliant breakfast at the hotel, we got into the Grand Vitara and headed south from the hotel. Our route today was to take in the crater at the south end of the island, followed by seeing the rest of the Moai, and yet again I’ve kindly included our route for those of you sufficiently arsed enough to look.

Driving past the airport, the sealed road once again ended abruptly, so the four wheel drive came into effect again as we climbed the stone dirt track, winding slowly uphill towards the top of Rano Kau crater. Stopping only to get a panoramic shot of Hanga Roa town,

we continued over the bumps and deep recesses of the dirt track until we finally reached the first stopping point at the summit.

The crater was vast; so vast in fact, at a diameter of 1.6km that it was impossible to fit it wholly onto one photo.

The banks leading down to the water swamped base two hundred metres below were exceeding steep. So it was quite amusing to overhear an English speaking guide who was with a tour party at the same place telling his group that his old grandmother used to walk down the slopes and back again each day to pick avocados from the bottom!

Thankfully, the smell emanating from our well worn clothes soon shifted the group along, so we quickly enjoyed the solitude of the views to ourselves; just Mandy and some scruffy, ragamuffin hermit alone at the top of a crater!

We carried on up the mud,

and arrived at Orongo,

which is the remains of a five hundred year old ceremonial village perched between the crater and the Pacific Ocean.

Orongo was used primarily for worshipping the Make-Make god, and was only used for a few weeks each year. Many of the buildings had fallen into disrepair,

and had been left in this state to show visitors, but the rest of the buildings had been restored to how they would have looked hundreds of years ago.

We followed the path around Orongo, finally reaching the focal point of the worshipping at the headland between the crater and the cliffs, where large numbers of Petroglyphs with intricate carvings could be seen.

It was at this point that the view of the crater was at its most dramatic yet.

So, as you do when you’re perched on a precipice two hundred metres high and can’t get a decent photo, I decided I was going to create a panoramic shot by taking a photo, moving two steps to the left, taking a photo and so on, until I had enough shots to put together! I think the bemused tour group waiting to get onto the ledge we were on had started taking bets as to when I would misplace a step and fall to the bottom, but I didn’t! Admittedly, the first attempt I had at making one composite photo of these didn’t quite work

but after subsequent attempts I did manage to make a half decent stab at it!

So, having reached the zenith of my photographic abilities, we headed on through the rest of the village, realising pretty quickly that old brick houses are only interesting for about 30 seconds!

And so we moved on, back down the rocky mud track!!!

Our next stop was Puna Pau, which quite simply was in the middle of nowhere, and we were the only ones around for miles.

And what significance did Puna Pau have? They made hats here!

Not your common old trilbies or bowlers mind.

Here they make Pukao hats!

And they came in a wide variety of one size fits all, cylinder shape, made from the finest cuts of red rock!

No-one is quite sure what the Pukao are, apart from natty dressing for the discernible Moai. According to the display panel, they could be hats; they could be topknots; they could even be turbans. To us they were just bloody big red rocks.

We tried looking at them from all different angles.
We tried looking at them from different distances.
We even tried closing our eyes and then suddenly springing at them unexpectedly. But no. They were still rocks. And so off we went again!

Next on our magical mystery tour, was Ahu Akivi. But as we got closer, even the dirt track decided to stop impersonating a road and so we were literally, from hereon in, off-roading.

Just before arriving at Ahu Akivi, we passed through some areas majorly flooded from heavy rainfall,

and in one swift stroke managed to turn the silver Grand Vitara into a moving box of liquid brown mud as a deluge of sludge span from the wheels all over the vehicle!

The ground was turning into a Glastonbury style mudbath, and so we were quite relieved to finally get to Ahu Akivi without getting stuck!

At Ahu Akivi was a platform containing seven Moai.

They weren’t as spectacular as the ones we’d seen yesterday (maybe they needed to invest in natty headwear!), but having looked at stone house and big bloody rocks, they were a quite welcome sight.

And so it was back to the off-roading and mud again!

Although the thought was in the back of our minds of the reaction of the hire car company to being given a beaten up, muddy wreck tomorrow, the child in me couldn’t resist pushing the Vitara to it’s limits. In one fit of madness, I decided to veer off down some rocks towards the cliffs, purely because I could see tire tracks so knew someone else had done it! The views were good, so had no regrets about doing it,

but we then had a slightly painstaking effort trying to work out the way to get back up again without wrecking the wheels on the 4x4!

We stopped off to see a lone Moai at Hanga Kio’e

and then finally for today, after traversing various impassable objects, (and sadly each time bursting into song with “it’s impassable” to the tune of “Its Impossible” by Perry Como), we arrived at Tahai to see the most spectacular of the Moai on the island. Although Tahai has a group of Moai on a platform and a single Moai standing by itself,

as well as countless other artefacts and a museum, it was another Moai that we had waited to see.

And why was this?

Because it was wearing a hat and had eyes!!!!

I don’t know why, but the bit of whitewash on the eyes seemed to really make it distinctive and more mysterious than nearly every other Moai we had seen. I’m not saying that it was the best area we had been to, as the couple of platforms we saw yesterday were better, but there was just something about this Moai that made it transfixing.

And that was the last of the Moai we were going to see, as we hand back the 4x4 tomorrow. So off we went back to the hotel, to see our new friend Knotty who lives outside our patio doors,

and to see a spectacular sunset drawing our off-roading adventure to an end!

We got up at 8am this morning, looking and feeling like one of the living dead. Still not over the jump in time differences, we headed off to breakfast. Which was brilliant. We had a little table set out purely for us, with a wide variety of breakfast stuffs and it brought us round quite nicely.

Over breakfast we decided between organising a tour of Easter Island, or hiring a 4x4 car. The trip would cost US$150 for one day, the 4x4 US$120 for two days. Bit of a no brainer really. So we asked the guy on reception where to get a car from; within five minutes he’d not only found us a Suzuki Grand Vitara but organised for them to pick us up from the hotel as well! Brilliant service yet again. And when we got to the hire car place, the whole transaction took less than five minutes before we got behind the wheel! So, off around Easter Island we went.

Easter Island is pretty tiny; to drive in a direct route through the centre of the island from the south west corner where we are staying, to the north east corner would only take around 15 minutes to do. We decided to drive an anti-clockwise route today, as it would take in most of the Moai on the island; the giant head statues that Easter Island is famous for.

The first surprise was the roads. In the town, Hanga Roa, the roads were bricked, exactly like many driveways in the UK. This gave a quite good surface, albeit a noisy one, to drive on. But as soon as we were outside the town, the surface became a normal sealed road surface. Driving on Easter Island is on the right hand side of the road – in theory! This is because the sealed road surfaces have so many gigantic potholes in them that you end up driving on the left, right and centre just to miss them!

Before starting on our anti-clockwise route, we headed down to the coast on the southwest corner of the island to have a look. It was pretty dramatic, with the Pacific Ocean battering several of the rocky outcrops off the coast, sending huge plumes of spray skywards.

Having been mesmerised for five minutes by the waves, and feeling a sense of elation at being free to travel under our own steam around the island, we set off on the anti-clockwise route we had planned for today. And for anyone reading this who doesn’t understand what anti-clockwise means I’ve included a simple map of our route today, highlighted in yellow!

After about a ten minute drive, we came across our first Moai statue at Hangu Te’e.

The Moai on Easter Island are all various sizes and shapes; we can demonstrate the size of this particular Moai by inserting a random, floppy headed, gimp into the picture.

So, this Moai was one and a quarter floppy headed gimp high!

We continued up the road, and encountered the first of many toppled Moai at Akahanga.

There are various theories about why many of the Moai on the island were toppled; one theory is that it was rival tribal wars in the seventeenth century, another is that a tsunami from an offshore earthquake did it. Either way, this one was big, and lying face down in the mud!

Continuing on our exploration, we headed now to the big quarry on the island, Rano Raraku, where the Moai and some of the other megalithic art on the island were originally created.

There were two main areas here; the actual quarry itself in a giant crater and the surrounding hills of the crater which are full of standing Moai. We decided to have a look at the Moai first, so headed along the track towards them.

And a very impressive sight it was too. The hillside was dotted with Moai after Moai after Moai,

and each one was staring out towards the main religious area of the island (Orongo in the southwest corner which we’re visiting tomorrow), and the sea.

Again, they were all in different shapes and sizes, ranging from quite tall ones with an upper torso visible,

ones where only a head was showing or just part of the neck

ones which looked more human than others and were of a full, kneeling body

and ones that were too hairy for words!

We passed an area where work had started on two Moai, and inexplicably had been stopped before completion, with the bodies still embedded in the rock that they were being carved from.

It was whilst here that we spotted a line of Moai on a platform, some way in the distance.

Resolving to investigate these further, first we headed along the path and up a steep slope and went to look at the quarry on the other side of the hill.

The quarry itself had been filled in with rain water, but you still got a sense of how much rock had been excavated to build the Moai.

It also had it’s own Moai standing guard over the area, on the interior wall of the crater.

We didn’t bother going to look closer at these, as we desperately wanted to see the platform of Moai we had observed earlier. So off down the steep quarry path we went to do just that!

By now, the roads had abandoned all pretence of being sealed, so we drove to the Moai platform, at a place called Tongariki, on a surface that was more mud and rock than anything else. We arrived there quite quickly after setting off from Rano Raraku, and took in our first detailed sight.

Its not often that you get chance to see a sight that you immediately know will stay in your mind for the rest of your life, but this was definitely one.

The Moai were huge, probably about thirty feet high at least, which you can get a sense of when you see the people in this photo below.

We even had chance to see one of the Moai wearing a Pukao (the red hat thing on its head!).

It was a wonderful experience, and even after driving away the Moai still dominated the view to the coast.

With the roads/ stony dirt tracks getting worse by the moment, and avoiding wild horses and stray cattle at every corner,

we reached the northern coast of Easter Island, and stopped at Papa Vaka. As well as the Moai on the island, there are also lots of Petroglyphs, large stones with intricate carvings. Papa Vaka is the site on the island that contains the largest of these so we went to take a look.

We had noticed by this stage that all the historic areas on Easter Island had been really well done. The whole island is a UN conservation area, and touching any of the Moai or Petroglyphs is punishable by large fines and even prison in cases where they are damaged. Whereas most places in the world, though, would only let you observe the Moai and Petroglyphs from a distance, on Easter Island they have purposely built paths and observation platforms to enable you to get up close and personal with the artefacts. There are also detailed information boards everywhere, meaning you don’t have to buy a guide book to have a good understanding of what you are seeing.

Papa Vaka was a good example of this. On a relatively large site,

they had built little platforms to enable you to look down on the Petroglyphs, and provided at each one a picture board to enable you to make out what you were looking at.

One thing they did get wrong here though was the time it would take to walk around Papa Vaka. The board suggested a thirty minute walk was needed; we looked at every Petroglyph on the site in five minutes flat, and we weren’t rushing around! The only way I could see that it would take thirty minutes would have been to hop around on one hand while juggling a beach ball with our feet!

Next on our travels was Te Pito Kura. And this is where the 4x4 really came into it’s own. The worst we had experienced this far was the occasional pothole and bumping stone surface, but to get to Te Pito Kura meant a full, off road experience. Travelling down a 50 degree gradient at times, the 4x4 lurched alarmingly from side to side as we drove down a surface that was little more than large boulders impersonating a road. If we were in a normal car, we would have reached the entrance with no bumpers, suspension or axles left! As it was, the Grand Vitara made it easy, and ever so slightly exhilarating!

Te Pito Kura was probably the least impressive of our sights today. After the effort required to get there, we were disappointed to realise that there were only a few stone built structures there and no Moai or Petroglyphs in sight.

Still, the rocky bay was quite nice,

and we also could see dolphins briefly surfacing just off a rock in the sea.

And so we left, and repeated the journey up the rocks in the 4x4, putting the extra traction to full use just to get back to the road!

Our final destination today was at Anakena. And it was so perfect a location that it felt that today had been almost script written. Further belittling our previous misconception that Easter Island was a cold barren place, we pulled up at the car park to be greeted by hundreds of palm trees.

And beyond these palm trees, nestling amongst a sand dune, was another platform of Moai.

The Moai here were among the best we had seen all day, four of the seven on the platform were wearing the distinct red Pukao

and their proximity to the pristine nearby beach was perfect.

We headed down to the sea, the fading sun casting perfect mirror image reflections onto the water

and the beach arched round in a perfect tropical bay.

We walked around the beach and sand dunes,

and then headed up a small hill for a scene of pure perfection, as the Moai stood sentry over the beach and calm blue Pacific Ocean beyond it.

And so, the view burning indelibly into our minds for ever, we set off back to Hanga Roa and the hotel, having completed our anti-clockwise circuit for today.

I mentioned on a day 114 of this trip, after the Great Barrier Reef, that it was extremely hard for me to say what my favourite thing on the trip had been. And to be honest, the longer the trip has gone on and the tireder we are becoming, we probably didn’t think anything would top what we’ve already done before. After today, though, it’s no longer an issue. Because for me, today has easily been the highlight of the trip so far. It was perfect in each and every way, and will be so, so hard to beat in the month and a bit remaining. Mandy can’t decide what her favourite thing has been (as she can’t remember half of what we’ve done!), but we were both agreed that we would never forget the experiences and sights we’ve seen today.

Our overnight plane from Tahiti to Easter Island was probably the newest plane we have ever been on. With high tech, touch screens and a wide variety of music, films, TV programmes and games to play with, it was the perfect plane for keeping entertained.

Only problem being that we didn’t want to be entertained! We needed to sleep, having been awake for over eighteen hours and being drained beyond belief. So, in a compromise, I created my own little 45 song playlist from the music options available and tried to sleep whilst listening to the music. And, unbelievably, it did actually work (albeit for about 4 of the 45 songs, but every little helps!). The seats, which when put down were almost like a bed, helped as well and the 15 minutes of sleep at least marked the end of our Tahiti experience. Even Mandy managed to sleep for the very first time ever on a plane (she usually is too interested in watching what’s going on to bother!).

We touched down in Easter Island around 9am, after a four and a half hour flight. Now this was quite weird, as in the four and a half hours of travelling we had moved through four time zones. So, from being 11 hours behind the UK when we set off, we were now only 7 hours behind (the closest we have been to UK time since we set off from Heathrow in January). I think the reason for such a rapid change in time in such a short flight was because Tahiti was on an artificial time zone to begin with; all we knew is that the clock said 9am but it felt like 5am to us!

Having passed through passport control (strange because everyone there was wearing disposable surgical face masks as if everyone getting off the plane was a bubonic plague carrier!), we got outside the terminal (for terminal read small, portakabin style building) and took our first steps onto the most isolated place on earth.

Easter Island is literally in the middle of nowhere. It’s surrounded by the Pacific Ocean for thousands of miles in every direction. It is owned by Chile, which is five hours flight east, and the only other place that flies here is Tahiti, four and a half hours west. There is no other inhabited place on Earth so remote from it’s nearest neighbour. And when I say inhabited, the total population of the island is only around four thousand people! And so to us, to finally get here, and appreciate where we were, was the crowning achievement of our trip so far!

The first surprise here was that it was warm. I don’t know why (maybe because it is so isolated), but I was convinced Easter Island was perpetually wet and cold. So, stepping out into 21 degrees Celsius weather at 9am in the morning was a bit of a shock! And it would appear that, far from being a cold wet rock in the Pacific Ocean, it is almost always warm and pleasant here! One more thing to add to my increasing list of misconceptions about places we’ve visited!

Our first task on the most isolated place on earth, was to look for our free transfer to the hotel. And within seconds, he was there holding a board up with our names.

Having made ourselves known, we were immediately greeted with a big necklace garland of flowers and our luggage taken to a nearby car. We were driven through the one and only town on Easter Island, Hanga Roa, and within a couple of minutes had reached our hotel for the next four nights, the Hotel Gomero.

On getting out of the car, we were immediately greeted with a fresh fruit smoothie drink, and then shown to our room immediately. There were no issues about the early check-in (before 10 am in the morning), and the whole experience was brilliant, immediately marking the hotel as something special.

We got into our room, still wearing the garland of flowers

and unpacked our stuff. For the next couple of hours we practically did nothing, apart from contacting our parents (using …….. FREE WIFI!!!!!!) to let them know we were still breathing! And then at 1:30pm, we headed back into the town to get some money changed.

It’s no exaggeration to say that, for the past two islands, we have had a recurring nightmare. This is getting any local currency. We couldn’t change money on the Cook Islands, had even less success on Tahiti, and there is literally one place on Easter Island that changes cash. And, surprise surprise, we got there at 1:40pm, to find it had shut at 1pm! So, needing to get something to drink and eat, we had no alternative than to go to the nearest shop, ask them if they accepted US$ and then present them with the only note I had on me, a US$100. To our surprise, not only did they still accept the note, but also didn’t rip us off with the exchange rate! We started to form the opinion at this stage that this was a very nice place!

Getting back to our room, we made the fatal mistake of lying down on the bed for a couple of minutes.

And hours later, we realised we had fallen asleep through a combination of lack of sleep and jet lag! So that was practically the end of our first day in Easter Island.

We just had time to find out Michael Jackson had died, which was obviously a shock to us as we were convinced he’s been dead for the past 26 years! No. To be fair he did have some use after “Thriller”; he made Jarvis Cocker cool and famous at the Brit Awards in the 90’s to which we are eternally grateful!

And then we tried to get to sleep, our bodies convinced that it was just evening but our clocks telling us it was 1am!

Not having a clue if the tour we had booked was going to turn up, and if so at what time, we got up at 6:45am and by 7:15am we were packed, our luggage dumped in the storage facility in the accommodation, and we waited for the tour to turn up.

And waited

And waited

And waited

By 8:45am, we had pretty much given up hope of anyone coming to pick us up. In a last desperate attempt to find out, we managed to find the telephone number for the company and I headed off to the reception area to find a phone.

The woman behind the counter didn’t speak English, but I understood enough French to know she was telling me there was a payphone around the corner and I would need to buy a phonecard for the equivalent of 5 Euros. Now, strangely enough, I didn’t particularly want to spend 5 Euros on a phone call so, playing the dumb foreigner routine to the best of my abilities (not hard to do!), I pretended not to understand a word she was saying! And (begrudgingly) she just dialled the number herself on the reception phone, thrusting it in my direction! So, 5 Euros saved there! And even better, the company confirmed we were on the tour and it would be arriving in 5 minutes! So thankfully we didn’t have to stay in hell for another second!

Our minibus arrived and we were off to explore the island. Our first stop was at a large resort hotel to pick up other passengers. However, as they were not there when we arrived, the woman driving and doing the tour, Angele, told us we could have ten minutes exploring the resort whilst she located them.

Straight away we began to realise what a different experience we would have had if staying in a resort like this. Although the price of a room here was five times the price we had paid last night, it was worth the extra. The swimming pool area in particular was pure luxurious, with an endless pool running into the sea and backdropped by another island in French Polynesia, Moorea.

Eventually, Angele had rounded up the missing passengers so we were off! The route we followed was clockwise around the island, starting at the main/ only town in Tahiti, Papeete. And the tour guide/ driver Angele was mad. Claiming an ancestral heritage that included, Scottish, Italian, German, English and Tahitian Royalty, she was extremely entertaining. She constantly referred to everyone as now being part of the AngelFruitSaladHeinz57MeltingPot Family. So you can see it wasn’t a dry and boring commentary! She told us that in Tahitian every vowel in a word was pronounced, (making our current position of Punaauia which is pronounced Pu-na-a-oo-ee-a sound more like an episode of Countdown than a place!). And in a stroke, with her cheery manner she’d made us forget about the negative experience of our accommodation and start to enjoy ourselves.

And our first true impression of Tahiti, discounting the negative feelings we had yesterday, was that it was a very picturesque island, with mountains in the centre dominating the views and lush tropical hills running down to the South Pacific Ocean.

Its natural beauty was confirmed at our first stop of the day, at a lookout point around 20 minutes round the coast from Papeete.

Again, we could see the fringe coral reef around the island, which increasingly seems to be a feature of the tropical islands we have seen.

In a pattern that was to be repeated several times in the day, we got back onto the minibus, only for it to drive for five minutes before we had to get off again! This next stop was at a small beach and lighthouse, where Captain Cook had stood at one point in time and which was also associated with Captain Bligh of “Mutiny on the Bounty” infamy. The place was called Pointe Venus, and the lighthouse itself had been built by the writer of “Treasure Island”, Robert Louis Stephenson’s father in 1867. Although quite a simple structure, it’s location among the tropical palm trees lent it a certain splendour.

We walked past the lighthouse, past some boats towards a bridge by the sea

and then got to sit on a black volcanic beach with spectacular views of the mountains.

As is always the case though on these sorts of trips, we didn’t have chance to relax before we were heading off to our next destination.

This was a blowhole, about another twenty minutes down the road. We’ve seen several blowholes on this trip so far, and this was like all the others; a bit of a disappointment. In the case of this one, the tide was very low and so the nearest we got to blowhole action was watching the waves smack against the rocks below. Across a busy, dangerous road, on a tight corner, there was a jet of air being shot up from the blowhole through a lava tube, but we would have been dicing with death to even get near it. Still, the bay in which the blowhole is situated is pretty nice.

And so onto our next stop which was only a further two minutes drive away. This was at Les Trois Cascades, which was a series of three waterfalls. We were warned that they are more spectacular in the wet season, and we only had chance to visit the nearest one to the car park, but it was definitely worth a visit.

With the walls, down which the waterfall ran, being so high you had to crane your neck to see the top, the water rushed down the rocks to a small pool below.

It wasn’t the biggest, strongest or most spectacular waterfall we’ve seen on the trip, but again its setting added to its appeal. The five minute walk to reach it from the car park was also very scenic, with a rock path meandering over bridges and through tropic bush and forest.

From Le Trois Cascades, we had the longest period of driving in the whole day. Our destination was the Paul Gauguin Restaurant for lunch, which was on the other side of the island (if you imagine Tahiti as a clock face, then Le Trois Cascades were at 1 o’clock and the restaurant was at five o’clock). It took around 40 minutes to do the trip, passing the small peninsula of Tahiti (Tahiti Iti) en route as well as lots and lots of tropical style scenery.

And so to Paul Gauguin Restaurant.

By the time we reached it we were starving. In the twenty six hours prior to arriving there, we had only eaten half a bag of crisps each! Our stomachs were making more noise than a jumbo jet, and we would have eaten anything and paid anything to do so. Which was fortunate, as the meal we ended up having at the restaurant was the most expensive meal we have had on the entire trip. It exceeded our daily budget in one massive stroke, as well as a significant proportion of another day’s! Its not that the restaurant was particularly expensive by Tahiti standards, just that Tahiti in general is a very expensive island. But, when you get chance to eat at a restaurant and the view from your table is the sun drenched sea of the South Pacific, the money ceases to be an issue.

And when the meals are so nice, and the portions are so massive that you can’t even complete three quarters of it without being sick, then at least you know you got value for money!

Bursting at the seams, and unable to walk more than two steps at a time through distended stomachs, we got back onto the bus to visit the Paul Gauguin Museum (surprisingly enough just around the corner from the Paul Gauguin Restaurant).

Paul Gauguin (for those who don’t know) was a nineteenth century French artist who spent a lot of time in Tahiti painting pictures of the natives. Although he’s not particularly an artist we’re into, we have nonetheless seen a few of his paintings in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris and the Chicago Art Institute, so it was something we weren’t going to pass up doing.

One thing we weren’t going to do happily though was pay full price to get in! So, trusty YHA cards at the ready, we posed as students and got in for half price again! I wonder how long it will actually be before someone asks us why we’re still students in our late thirties!!

Although there were no original paintings in the Museum, it was still interesting to walk around and read about the stories behind some of the paintings.

The setting once again (I can see a theme here!) also added to the charm, being in the middle of the botanical gardens and right next to the sea.

Back on the bus, the next stop was Les Jardins D’Eau De Vaipahi. This was a public garden in Tahiti that had been recently developed and contained a waterfall

and several lily ponds.

It was here that we noticed a pattern had developed. When the minibus had stopped at all the previous destinations, we always seemed to be the first ones off the bus, and seemed to dictate the path that the other tourists were following. And when we’d had enough of a particular area and had headed back towards the bus (it was quite relaxed in that for most places we visited today, Angele gave us however long we needed to see things), everyone else had followed us back.

So we decided to have a bit of fun. Having finished our photo taking at the waterfall, we headed off towards a boardwalk. The usual way to this was to walk around another path, but we took a shortcut which meant crossing a lawn and then a small stream using stepping stones. And sure enough, when the other tourists had their complement of waterfall pictures, what did they do? Crossed the lawn and then a small stream using stepping stones! Laughing to ourselves and singing “Follow the leader! Follow the leader”, we led our little flock of sheep back to the bus!

The bus headed towards the final stop on the tour, the Grotte De Maraa, passing good views of the hills on the way.

And, although the Grotte De Maraa was okay, it was probably slightly anti-climatic to a great trip but nevermind.

And so the trip was over. But not entirely for us. We’d asked Angele in the restaurant earlier if she could give us a lift to the airport, which she’d agreed to for a lot less than the accommodation airport transfer. So, with the other tourists in the bus still, she pulled up at our place whilst we got our luggage back, and then she continued to drop the other guests off.

As our flight wasn’t until past midnight tonight, she offered to drop us in the main town, Papeete, for an hour as she had ferry passengers to pick up at 5:15pm. So leaving our bags in the bus, we got off at the market and had a quick look around.

Pretty much everything was shutting for the day, but we had chance to wander down a couple of streets,

sit on some random stairs

and then take in the views from the harbour while we waited for the bus to pick us up.

And then, after dropping some passengers off at a couple of other plush resorts, she dropped us at the airport at 6pm. Not before observing a Tahiti custom of presenting us with a necklace garland each made entirely of small sea shells.

And so we had six and a half hours at the airport to kill! And to make matters worse, pretty much everything in the place was shut!

The check in desks were shut.

McDonalds was shut.

Even the only shop selling liquids and food shut.

And there were hundreds of people milling around (there was a major flight to Paris via LA going an hour before ours) and very little seats! So, being lucky, we managed to secure a couple, guarding them like Rottweilers until the check in desk opened.

So, an hour passed to 7pm.

Another hour passed to 8pm.

Although it felt like two hours, another hour passed to 9pm.

At 9:30pm, the Paris/LA flight started to check in. Very very slowly. But it gave us something to watch.

The clock reached 10pm. We were still sat with all our luggage and the check in desks were firmly shuttered.

And then, finally, the gates opened at 10:35pm and we were at last parted from our heavy packs!

We’d been up since 6:45am, done a full days activities, had waited for hours in an airport, and were completely exhausted! We even had the indignity of one of the airport lights laughing at us!

But we got through to the departure lounge, got onto our plane, and then at 12:40 am in the morning, finally left Tahiti to fly to Easter Island.

It had been the most remarkable turnaround in feelings for us today. We woke up completely hating Tahiti, and yet half an hour into our trip we were loving it. All it took was to see good sights and to be treated properly by our tour guide/ driver Angele and it totally turned the whole experience through 360 degrees. It’s not the sort of place to go to on a budget; to do it justice you really have to stay in one of the expensive resort hotels and visit some of the other islands during your stay. But for a “taster” and stopover destination on the way to Easter Island, it finally ticked all the right boxes for us.

And our new surnames are now AngelFruitSaladHeinz57MeltingPot. Just got to get that new signature practised………….

Today we were leaving the Cook Islands to take the next step in our South Pacific Island hopping; Tahiti in French Polynesia. However, first we had to get to the airport.

We’d booked our transfer to the airport for 9:40am. However, on the Cook Islands, there appears to be two distinct types of time running side by side. There’s the time that your watch says and then there’s Island Time; a concept that things will happen when they happen and not when a clock say (think of the old Malibu adverts and you’ll understand what I mean).

So it was no real surprise to anyone that our transfer van turned up casually at 10am. It didn’t matter that he was late though; he was chilled, we were chilled, and it happened when it happened!

On arriving at the airport, we got a sight which summed up how relaxing and “world apart” the Cook Islands had been to us. Most airports have gun toting security forces patrolling the airport concourse. Not in Rarotonga though. Here they had a security cockerel!!

We were nervous at first; after all we had eaten many of his relatives on our travels. But, in typical Cook Islands fashion, he was chilled, and didn’t peck our heads with loads of questions!

The plane to Tahiti was a first on this trip; a propeller driven plane rather than a jet plane.

It had been the very last flight we had booked before leaving home, and was the lynchpin to us getting home; there is only one flight per week between the Cook Islands and Tahiti, and we needed to get to Tahiti today in order for us to get our connecting flights onwards to South America and ultimately home. So we were quite relieved to finally see it in the flesh.

Two and a quarter hours of propeller driven flight later, we arrived in Tahiti. And strangely enough, although being stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it is politically a French Territory which indirectly makes it part of Europe. So we didn’t need visas, or to fill out lengthy landing forms to enter the country; we just walked through passport control exactly like in Europe with no fuss or even a passport stamp to say we’d been there. All the signs were not only in French, but were the same typeface and colour as the same signs in France. The only thing that indicated we weren’t in Europe was the intense heat and humidity in the air! It hit us a second after leaving the plane, and we were drenched with sweat a millisecond later.

It was from this point onwards that our day started to go bad. Firstly, we didn’t have any Pacific Francs on us; the two attempts we had made to get these before landing had failed, but we had been assured there were facilities at the airport. So, we tried our credit cards in the ATM. And they were rejected. So we looked for a Bureau De Change. And they were closed! Both of them! At a so-called international airport! So, in desperation, we had to use an automatic currency exchange and feed some of our US$ into it to get converted. And we got completely and utterly fleeced with the exchange rate, getting two thirds of the true value of our money back.

So, money resolved, albeit wholly unsatisfactorily, we looked for a taxi. We followed the signs, and they ended without a cab in sight. So we walked back to look for an information booth. And no-one was in it. So for the next ten minutes we looked around to no avail, until eventually we saw a cab driving past. Flagging it down, they told us we had to go to the taxi queue. And so we found it; obviously hidden and in completely the opposite direction to where the signs had indicated.

Thirdly, we didn’t have a good experience when arriving at our accommodation for the night. Now, I’ll put it on record that I have nothing against the French. Over the years, we have met lots of nice French people, and have been to France on holiday on innumerous occasions. Now, obviously, every country has people who come across as being arrogant or just downright obtrusive, but we seemed to have experienced this in France more than anywhere else. And as luck would have it, the owner of our accommodation was one such person.

Perhaps the best way of describing it is that most places we have stayed at have made us feel welcome, and have gone out of their way to help us without complaint (even if what we have asked has been hard for them). Whereas here, we got the distinct impression that we were here on his charity, and that we should be grateful for him allowing us in the accommodation. It’s a complete 360 degree flip from what an accommodation/ customer relationship should be, totally like an attitude you’d expect from a 1950’s bed and breakfast holiday in the UK, and the sort of thing we detest utterly. Perhaps summed up by his response to storing our luggage tomorrow (already established by email before we booked) that he would want us to pick our luggage up and be off the premises by 6pm at the latest!

The room was like a sauna, the ineffectual ceiling fan obviously more use as a child’s mobile, had no drinkable water supply (meaning having to pay the owner for highly inflated bottled water before we dropped of heat exhaustion), and had the most unique security system on earth. Having warned us not to leave our windows and doors open at night, as people have entered rooms whilst guests have slept, he showed us the amazing anti-theft device for the main patio doors; a stick! And not just any old stick; it was a stick that didn’t even fully close the door! It left a gap big enough for an elephant to get through! Now call me old fashioned, but maybe a lock on the door may have been a more effective deterrent!!

Fourthly, there was nowhere (apart from taking a £20 taxi ride) where we could get food to eat. Only a Mobil garage around the corner. Which had practically nothing in it. So our meal tonight consisted of half a bottle of water and half a bag of crisps each!

Fifthly, we went to have a look of the beach, and had to pass several extremely shady looking characters en route. There was an undeniable air of menace on our walk there, and felt like we had “mug us” tattooed across our foreheads! Not pleasant at all!

Sixthly, the Wifi at the accommodation was broken. Which meant we had no way of knowing if the Tahiti tour we had booked for tomorrow was going to pick us up and if so, at what time.

And seventhly (is that even a word!) and finally, we got completely and utterly eaten alive by mosquitoes. There is hardly a patch on my legs that isn’t an ugly looking blister or red blood mark.

We’ve had one or two tough times on this trip, but as we went to sleep we had started to develop an almost pathological hatred towards Tahiti. If we could have got on a flight home there and then we would have done it without a seconds thought. And if the tour doesn’t pick us up tomorrow, we are going to have to occupy ourselves around our accommodation; and how we feel at the moment we’d rather stick pins into our eyes.

Last night we had debated getting a Smart car for the day; originally we were going to get scooters but we would have had to go into the main town to pass a driving test which seemed, ever so slightly, too much hassle.

When we woke up though, all thoughts of car hire disappeared in a flash. A mini tropical hurricane was lashing the island, swamping the ground below us and swaying the palm trees with some ferocity. We would have had to walk two miles from the apartment to the car hire place, and in the conditions it just wasn’t feasible.

So, with the car hire option disappearing, we did the only other option available to us, which was lie on the bed, read our books and watch the weather try to rip the island apart!

After about half an hour, we saw a head pop around the dividing wall between our apartment and the one next door, and pretty soon we were sat outside chatting to the other owner of the Muri Retreat, Phoebe.

And half an hour later we were still chatting! Phoebe was very friendly and chatty, and told us how they’d come to run the place we were staying in. Both her and Steve had worked for Kellogs in Sydney, and had been made redundant. As she was from the Cook Islands originally, they had decided to move back and look for a business and a few months later they had bought an old house and converted it into where we were now staying. They had deliberately targeted the traveller market by adding kitchens, dvds and book swaps to differentiate themselves from the competition, and seemed to be working really well for them. It reminded us of the “No Going Back” series of programmes on TV back home, where people had given up high stress jobs to start a business abroad, and was fascinating to listen to. It was also funny when she mentioned that one of the feedbacks she got from someone staying there was that it was too noisy. We both looked at each other at that stage; the only noise was from a rooster and the sea! It was probably the quietest place we have ever stayed!!! We normally avoid speaking to owners of places we have stayed at , but it was really good to hear from a Cook Islander about the place, and we got quite a good insight into island life.

After Phoebe had left, the weather picked up again, and blue sky actually appeared! Making the most of it, we headed down to the beach again, this time heading in the opposite direction

The water in the lagoon seemed to change colour by the minute, as the sky above varied between cloud and sunshine.

The sight of the sea pounding the coral barrier of the lagoon was transfixing. And the temperature started to rise by the minute.

Having walked for about a mile, we’d gone as far along the beach as was necessary, so (one “kiddie tarzan swing that I found in a tree” ride later) we headed back onto the main road and nearby town, stopping off at an internet café on the way back to the apartment.

We timed our return to perfection; the wind picked up again, the heavens opened, and another storm hit the island; we were going nowhere for the rest of the day onwards.

So, we spent our last night here in the apartment, with just a friendly gecko for company.

We’ve really loved our stay in the Cook Islands. Its been totally relaxing, seems like a wonderful place, and the people are extremely friendly. Our only regret about the place is that we can’t stay longer. But, as always, tomorrow we’re on the move again, this time flying by a propeller driven plane to Tahiti. We’ve got one night and then all of the next day in Tahiti before getting the midnight flight to Easter Island. And, despite having to leave Rarotonga, we’re looking forward to it.

We woke up today totally confused. We had distinctly remembered waking up on the morning of Sunday 21st June in Christchurch, and yet here we were waking up on Sunday 21st June in Rarotonga. One Sunday in the week is bad enough, but we now had two this week! And we’d gone from being 11 hours in front of the UK to being 11 hours behind overnight! Very confusing!

So, having a second Sunday in a row, we had to decide what to do with it. Our thoughts turned (naturally) to food, as in was there anywhere that would be open on a Sunday. In fact were we even near anywhere? The van last night had seemed to veer off the road onto the dirt track in the middle of nowhere. Straight away, thoughts of rustling up a toilet paper fricassee came to mind!

Before going on a food hunt, we had a proper look at the room, and the view. Our first impressions last night were confirmed; it was idyllic.

We were set back from the coastline, going up one of the hillsides, but from our veranda we could quite easily see the sea, and the whole area around us was completely lush with tropical vegetation.

We soon heard a knock at the door, and it was one of the owners, Steve, who brought us a big bunch of bananas, which were growing outside! Regular readers of this blog (if there are any out there!) may recall my Mum’s strange addiction to buying bananas on holiday. Why she’s like this I’ll never know (although a story that she’s expressly forbidden me to tell involving monkey impressions may explain some of it; but that’s for another occasion!). Well she would be in heaven here because the whole place is surrounded by them! And here Mum, especially for you, is a picture of our bananas.

Steve wasn’t too hopeful at anywhere being open, but pointed us in the general direction anyway. So, knowing now that as a last resort we could live off bananas today at the very least, we set off on an explore of the immediate vicinity.

Again, it felt like another world. Heading down the dirt track, we passed rows of banana plants, swamp land, and cows tethered by the track. It was like a scene from another century.

Even reaching the main road, we saw very little transportation. There were very few cars; indeed the two most common forms of transport that we saw were mopeds and foot!

By a miracle, the convenience store we’d been directed to was open. The prices came as a complete shock, with several items costing three times as much as they did in New Zealand. So, as we seem to do in every country we visit, we adapted our taste buds to the cheapest possible combination of foodstuffs and bought our provisions for the next two days.

Our next objective was to find the beach! We had seen the sea from our veranda, we could hear the waves pounding the coral lagoon, but we couldn’t find any access point whatsoever to get there! It seemed like every single bit of coastline was occupied by private houses, all displaying no entry signs on their paths!

So we did the next best thing; we found a nearby luxury resort, and just walked through there instead! With our plastic shopping bags in tow and general dishevelled appearance, we seemed to be an item of curiosity amongst the residents of the luxury resort. But we held our heads high, strutting our stuff as we headed towards the beach, safe in the knowledge we had paid around three times as less for our accommodation as they had, and were going to use their beach access regardless of whether we had paid for it or not!

The beach was astounding. The area of Rarotonga we were staying in, Muri Beach, is protected from the South Pacific ocean by a coral lagoon. This meant that the water in the lagoon was extremely warm, and gave a spectacle of the waves from the South Pacific crashing furiously into the coral someway from the beach.

The beach was golden sand, palm trees casting shadows on it from the banks of the bay.

There were small islands in the middle of the lagoon.

It truly was awesome.

We took a long walk to the nearby headland,

and then walked through another (even higher standard) luxury resort to get back to the road, and ultimately our studio apartment.

And then, realising that all the stresses of the past few weeks had left us, we decided to completely and utterly chill out at our apartment, relaxing on our veranda as we watched the day slowly fade to be replaced by the pitch black darkness of the Rarotongan night.

And so ended the longest Sunday of our lives, having lasted a mammoth forty six hours! And June 21st in New Zealand is supposed to be the shortest day of the year!