Mikko > Shift

Easter Island took me for 3 days longer than I'd planned to stay there - the 4 day stay that I had planned initially, thinking it might be too much and leave me bored, would have been way too little. Certainly, the main monuments, the moai, are seen quite quickly in a day, but there is much more to the island to explore, including crystal-clear diving waters (visibility exceeding 40 meters). This is partly due to there not being other islands to contribute to the debris within thousands of kilometres.

But most of my experiences are terrestrial. It was a stroke of luck that I'd arrived during the Rapa Nui equivalent of Carnaval (in Rapa Nui scale, or course), Tapati, which featured nightly shows, parades, and daily competitions in boating, canoeing, sliding down a mountainside with a straw raft, cooking, weaving - all to select a queen from among three Rapa Nui candidates. The whole island was mobilized, and sleep-deprived, I'd imagine, since the parties were busting until 5 am every night. Didn't get to spend time in silence like I'd imagined. Tough luck, as you'll probably agree by these Easter Island photos...

The culture is a magnificent one, the island a perfect compromise between local color and modern services, and though it's clearly more expensive than mainland Chile, you're still looking at one of the most affordable islands in the Western Pacific. It is bare, almost barren in places, but that just adds to the charm. There are a couple of beaches and the reef break in front of the only town of Hanga Roa ranges from accessible to really rough. And it was the people who kept me there as well, of course, ranging from fellow travelers who'd been on the road for 8 years to returning Rapa Nui enthusiasts.

But this tramp is coming to an end. One sign was that I just cashed in some hard-earned miles and got my brother a HEL-JFK return to come and join me in NYC and surroundings for a week. That'll be fun before heading back up north. I'll actually have a few coupons left on my round-the-world ticket, so Finland, looming at the end of another month and a half is another long stopover. And I need to take care of some business at some point.