Neither of us realised quite how far away it was. The flight took just over 5 hours. It was a great plane with fancy inflight entertainment that kept us glued to our screens the whole way. Clairy got to watch 4 episodes of house, but unfortunately wouldn't play me at computer battleships, the spoilsport. Here we are jacked right in (the bloke behind doesn't seem to be enjoying it quite as much...that was possibly because of my annoyingly loud laughing at the very silly new Will Ferrell film Semi Pro).
Here's our first glimpse of Rapa Nui. We couldn't see anything of the island (or anything else for that matter) until we were just about to land.
Green...but grey.
We got our bags and sauntered out of the tiny airport. Clairy was a tad disappointed that we hadn't got anyone to meet us, as most people were presented with floral necklaces. We planned to walk down to the campsite ourselves. It was about a half an hour walk that took us along the edge of the main (and only) town on Rapa Nui called Hanga Roa. It was raining and overcast, but it wasn't too heavy.
As we arrived at the campsite, a vehicle belonging to them turned up with people from the airport who had booked ahead with them, and they were all wearing floral necklaces too! I didn't quite have the nerve to go and ask for one for us. Sorry Clairy. We agreed we would book accommodation ahead of our next flights in the hope of getting some floral loving.
The campsite has a truly stunning location on the south edge of the town right by the sea. The facilities are a tad basic, but it did have kitchen facilities and hot showers so we were happy with that. We planned to stay there for our full two weeks on Rapa Nui. There was also a covered area, which we immediately put to good use by standing and staring at the almighty downpour the drizzle had turned into. In a brief relaxation of the torrent we put the tent up under cover, then ran out quickly into the rain and pegged it down. We quickly stuck our rucksacks in and headed out for walk around the town.
We stopped at a place recommended for its empanadas, and bloody lush they were too. They are a bit of a speciality on the island and I obviously love them being both fried, huge and pasty-like. We also tried some tuna and it was incredibly tasty. Super flavorful. We then continued on and Clair got this nice pic of a fern growing in between the volcanic rock that is used for most of the walls and some of the buildings around town.
We were aiming for the museum, but both the map we had picked up from the tourist office and the one in the lonely planet were quite frankly a bit rubbish and we accidently ended up exploring the further reaches of town. It was very pretty though. Lots of buildings are fairly simple, seemingly built of some kind of plaster board on concrete foundations. This one was a nice pink colour.
It was absolutely hammering it down on the walk mind, and we cowered under many a bamboo thicket. We did spot this lovely round house that looked like someone had fixed up a half built concrete shell with whatever they could get their hands on.
Clairy sheltering under a mahoosive rubber tree.
We were both desperate to see our first Moai though, so headed to Ahu Tahai, where there are a set of three ahu platforms. It was a bit wet and wild for pictures, but in what would prove to be a common theme of our Easter Island experience we were adopted by a doggy. This one was a very young little black labrador who had a big scar on his back where some nasty bigger thing had taken a chunk out of him, poor bugger.
He followed us all the way up to the museum where he had to wait outside. We were slightly relieved to find he had got bored and went off with someone else by the time we headed out. We were a bit too knackered by this point to read all the tiny print of the museum but it all seemed very interesting and decided we would come back the following day.
After this we walked back through town and purchased some supplies for us to cook for dinner. On the walk back the rain got more and more severe to the point where it was just pouring off our jackets and our (only) trousers were shiny with total drenchedness. We cowered under another bamboo thicket, but eventually had to just accept a soaking and carry on.
It was at this point that we both wondered whether it was really feasible to be camping in the weather we had arrived in. I said we needed to give it at least a night and Clairy agreed. In the night the rain just poured and poured, but fortunately we (and all our stuff) was still dry in the morning. This was partly due to a truly inspired purchase of 1 by 4 metres of plastic sheeting by Clairy when were in Santiago to stop our bags from getting drenched. What a legend she is!
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