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Easter Island: free day with a walk to the museum

This is an old journal, from our trip around the world in 2002, taken from the diary I wrote at the time. Apologies for the poor quality photographs, they are scans of prints taken with a compact camera and images from the scrap book I made afterwards.

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View Around the World for our Silver Wedding 2002 on Grete Howard's travel map.

We left the alarm off this morning and don’t actually get up until 08:50. We are the last for breakfast, which is a cakey-thing and bananas, ham and cheese. The rolls are much fresher this morning than they have been.

Today is the other free day on our trip, and we have planned our little walking tour. We start along the coast, past the kiddies’ playground (better than any in Nailsea) and some strange porous sculptures with petroglyphs on.

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It’s a nice walk, along a good path, the terrain is rocky but flat and the sun is out. There are lots of beautiful wild horses around; the island is full of them. They are not really wild; they do belong to somebody, but are free to wander around as they please. We see one other tourist on our walk, a weird man carrying lots of gear. For the most part we have the whole place to ourselves. It is Sunday morning, so the locals are in Church.

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Along the coast is a row of five restored moai on a ceremonial platform, and one solitary statue with its basalt eyes in place. This is how they would have all looked at one time. I try to picture in my mind how the island would have looked in its heyday with all the moai upright and painted. It is hard to imagine. The overwhelming amount of history and culture found on Easter Island far belies its size.

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We turn off inland and follow a track until we reach the small museum. Victor warned us that although it is fairly interesting, there really isn’t all that much on display. He is right. We are given a booklet in English to follow the exhibits, and for me the most noteworthy item is the only female moai on the island – its torso had been taken by Thor Heyerdahl, but was returned from Norway in the 1970s.

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In the small shop we look for souvenirs for my mum, but at US$45 for a thimble, I’m afraid she goes without. The temperature inside the museum is far too hot with no movement of air. I am glad to get outside. We return to town along the little gravel road, passing many urban houses along the way. It is interesting to see how the locals live.

For lunch we revisit the seafront restaurant from last night. Yesterday I noticed somebody eating a chicken soup and it looked so good I wanted to try one today. It is every bit as enjoyable as it looks; an enormous bowl piled high with vegetables, chicken and noodles. And best of all – not a chip in sight! David also enjoys his spaghetti Bolognese. We watch the surfers in the harbour, and it starts to rain heavily. Again. All the locals are out on the town’s only football pitch for a derby. We have seen at least five different games so far. We were hoping to be able to use the internet in the reception for a short while this afternoon, but it is unattended, they are probably watching the football. Just as well we took our key with us when we went out. After a long siesta we enjoy a drink in the room before going down to Pea Restaurant for dinner. Reported to be the best restaurant in town, we have saved it for the last dinner. I immediately like it when I see that there are several items on the menu that don’t include chips. My chicken comes with rice and pineapple while David’s steak is accompanied by mashed potato. Back at the hotel the reception is again manned and we send a quick message to Pauline to wish her happy birthday. More drinks in the room before it’s time for bed.

Posted by Grete Howard 08:22 Archived in Chile Tagged walking travel chile rtw easter_island moai hanga_roa thor_heyerdahl

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