Day 138 - Bienvenido a Rapa Nui

The five-hour flight and five hours of time difference let it be 1 o’clock in the afternoon and we were tired as hell, even though we slept on the plane. Though nobody actually wanted to fly at 3 AM really, even though the Easter Island was just a stop on the way to Santiago de Chile, the plane was quite empty so that many people could have a row of three seats for themselves, just like my father and me - fortunately.

After the immigration part of every journey we were picked up by a Chilean guy who took us on a tour through the only village of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the capital Hanga Roa. This village counts about 6’000 inhabitants, and is composed of two main streets along which you find around twenty different supermarkets, ten souvenir shops, five car and scooter rentals, and one tattoo shop. Near the airport on one side of the village you find the only gas station on the entire island, and still the petrol is comparably cheap. A little further out is our hostel. The streets are all in all better than in Moorea (which is not hard to reach), only about fifteen big potholes per hundred meters, not fifty.

Ceviche of Rapa Nui: with a looot of onions and tuna

 

Not too famous ones, but our first real moais!

 

As I got sick (how can anybody get sick on Tahiti?) I was quite exhausted from that horror trip, and slept for another hour on the hyper soft bed in our hostel. I think this is the best bed we had during our travels so far, soft mattress, nice pillow and long enough. Unfortunately I missed the prettiest sunset from all the days here on Rapa Nui.