Easter Island

January 22 2025 (day 2)

Good Morning readers! Another morning waking up outside Easter Island. My first action of the day was to look out the window and check the height of the swell. The swells didn’t seem to be worse than yesterday. For today I managed to get a spot on another tour on the Island. Today’s tour was to visit ancient cultures sites.

After a quick breakfast, we were ready to embark the ship by 8:00 AM. The tender ride over to the Island was a lot smoother than yesterday. After climbing out of the tender onto shore, the Chilean border agents checked our bags for fruits and food, which are not allowed to be brought onto the island.

After we boarded the mini bus, we were on our way to our first stop. After getting off the bus we walked up a grassy incline to come to the edge of this enormous crater of a distinct Volcano named Rano Kau. The crater of the vulcano was created over 2 million years ago. The crater was almost a mile across and over 200 meter deep. The bottom of the crater is filled with water and all kinds of grassy island patches. The water quality is apparently very good and is safe to drink. In the bottom of the lake they discovered ingredients used to make medicines. The drugs are used in conjunction with organ transplant.

After the Vulcano visit we boarded the van onto our next location called Orongo. After a well needed pea break to dispose of this morning’s coffee, we followed a pathway overlooking the ocean till we arrived at a view point. We could see 2 small islands offshore named Motu Nui.

In the old days before approximate 1880 the Bird Man competition was held here. After the Sooty Tern (Sea bird) flew out to sea, the men in the bird man competition would swim to the small island and waited there for the bird to return and lay their eggs. The man who found the egg was the winner and had to swim back to the main island and scale the 250 ft rock cliff with the egg tight to his head and  hand the egg over . The following year he and his family were entitled to that year’s harvest. It was said that many men died during the swim due to rough seas and sharks. After this visit we followed the path up the hill a little further and came to a series of small stone houses with small openings where people used to live. These small stone dwellings were only approximately 5 ft high. Definitely not built for comfort. After rounding the stone buildings we walked along the rim of the Vulcano crater towards our Van onto our next stop.

Our next stop was a view point overlooking the town of Hangoa-Roa and the airport. Two daily flights come in daily from mainland Chile and the occasional flight from Tahiti. It is a six hour flight to Chile. After taking a few pictures and dodging an herd of cows which are roaming freely along the roads, we carried on through town to a Moai site we actually visited yesterday.

After the Van dropped us off at the dock, we boarded the tender back to the ship. That afternoon a sail away party was organised on the back of the ship after we lifted the anchor on our way to our next location.

After being in doubt for several days if we were able to land on the Island, it ended up being two fantastic days.

Cheers

Cor and Carol