Day 45 - Rapa Nui

Saturday, 27 September 2014

After 3 full days in Santiago, I actually grew quite fond of the city, mainly because as I said, it reminds me a lot of Kuala Lumpur. Maybe I was too quick to judge Chile, there are bad, nasty, rude, lazy people all around the world just as there are kind and generous people all around the world. Just because I had a bad experience in Chile doesn't mean the country is bad. But my favourite country thus far in terms of the people is still Ecuador, followed by Peru.

This morning I woke up at 6 am, showered and re-packed all my stuff for my 5 day stay in Rapa Nui. I am very good at packing, unpacking and re-packing because I change my mind about things about a million times per second. I decided to take a small bag with me and leave my big suitcase in the hostel, the hostel was kind enough to allow me to do so. At about 7 am I walked to the Metro station, and took the Metro to the bus station where I took the bus to the airport. The Santiago airport had a self check in and baggage drop counter, just like KLIA. Then it was time to wait for my flight to Rapa Nui at 9.10 am. The locals call it Rapa Nui, in English it is Easter Island, in Spanish it is Isla de Pascua. 

On my ticket it said I was due to arrive in Rapa Nui at 1.30 pm so I thought it was a 4 hour flight. I was wrong. Rapa Nui is actually 2 hours behind Santiago (13 hours behind Malaysia) so the flight was closer to 6 hours. As a result, I watched a movie (The Monuments Men) and 2 documentaries on board the flight to kill time. I couldn't sleep although I woke up very early this morning, I think it was because I was feeling extremely sad for reasons I am not yet prepared to divulge at this moment and the in flight entertainment was a welcome distraction for me to avoid crying and inviting weird stares from strangers.

I arrived in Rapa Nui at approximately 1.15 pm, and there was a guy waiting there for me at the airport with a garland of flowers. This is part of the tour I booked. The garland of flowers is so Hawaiian, and I was told that the people of Hawaii and Rapa Nui probably had the same ancestors, their language is somewhat similar and they are both Polynesians. Then I was taken to my hotel which looked really posh, but it was the cheapest hotel on the list of hotels offered in the tour. And the tour I booked at the tour agency was much cheaper than any I could find on the internet. The most expensive thing on this tour is the flight tickets, which is monopolised by LAN airline company. I guess I could've come to the island and booked a hotel but I didn't want to take the risk. 

Then there was nothing for me to do for the rest of the day! Part of the tour included 3 meals at a restaurant called Kuki Varua (there are a lot of weird names going on here) but this was in town, and I had to take a taxi to town as it is not walking distance. Everything on this island is so expensive, a bottle of 1 litre water costs 2,500 pesos (in Santiago it is 850 pesos) (about RM13!) and the taxi to town is 3,000 pesos (about RM16!). But anyway I had nothing to do so I took a taxi to town and I think I really walked the entire town.he town is called Hanga Roa and the beach or port area is called Playa Pea. I bought some souvenirs, and I went to this place called Tahai where there are 5 moais, it is a good place to watch the sun set. I was so excited to see my first moais I took a million pictures! The sun here sets at about 8 to 8.30 pm but it rises quite late too, about 7.30 to 8 pm. I found the restaurant where I had a free voucher but they only opened for dinner at 7 pm so I waited until the sun almost set at 7.30 am, then walked to the restaurant for dinner, and then took a taxi back to the hotel.

Altogether I must have walked for about 4 hours, and I didn't get enough sleep today, so after showering I fell asleep almost immediately.