No one ever wants an early start to a new year, but when you are in such a wonderfully exciting place, so close to the ocean that you think the waves are lapping at your feet, it is easy to wake early. We had a tour booked for today so at 9am we were outside waiting for the tour bus. Now, I hate tours, but there were two main considerations that brought us to this decision. Being New Year’s Day and a Sunday, everything was closed, i.e. dive shops, so there wasn’t much of a second option. Secondly, we wanted to get an overview of the island from a tour guide before we started our own explorations, to kind of set the scene.
After over an hour of waiting we finally gave up and accepted something went wrong with the booking. Maybe they partied too hard the night before. Sulkily we dragged our feet into town. Easter Island was one of the places we were looking forward to most and now we were going to lose a day with nothing to do. Over a very expensive, but equally tasty, coffee we hatched our contingency plans.
Option 1: we hire a car instead and see some of the sites ourselves. We had a car reserved for the following days but perhaps we could get one sooner. Sadly this was not so simple. There were no available cars.
Option 2 (and currently our only option): we hire scooters to get ourselves around the island. Now, there were a number of problems with this plan. Firstly, being the son of a nurse who trained in A&E casualty wards, I was always forbidden from even looking at motorcycles. My mom had seen too many crash victims and brainwashed us into never riding motorcycles or scooters. Second problem was that the roads here are not great with lots of gravel sections and potholes. Third problem, there is no insurance on the island. Anything you hire is on your own head. And if you see how they locals drive, this would get you worried! Fourth problem, we did not have bike licences which were compulsory. Obviously.
Suddenly we had no plan. I thought I’d better just check what my driver’s licence said. Turns out there are a bunch of codes I do not understand next to a picture of a motorcycle so I guess that means we do have licences. At least that is what we told the owner, so problems 1-4 were swiftly forgotten. We were back in action!
Adrie used to ride a scooter to school and so was duly nominated as the taxi driver. We were issued a noisy specimen and with me riding pillion we set off. It must have been quite a sight to see a 6”4 oaf trying to find a place to put his feet while holding on for dear life being almost bumped off the back of a 50cc scooter while dodging potholes in the main street. It was not so funny when we reached the corner and my knees prevented Adrie from turning and we found ourselves on the wrong side of the road. We needed two scooters. And I was NOT going to get on the back again so I walked the 750m back to the shop while Adrie sorted the paperwork in the meantime.
My new friend for the day was a white steel hog to go along with Adrie’s black number. They were swiftly dubbed Witblitz (White Lightning) and Swart Kat (Black Cat) and the Easter Island South African Scooter Gang was born!
“Swart Kat” and “Witblitz” at a stop overlooking Hanga Roa
Hesitantly I set off and before long we were out of town and into the back country. Our first stop was the extinct volcano crater of Rano Kau and the religious village of Orongo – the site of the birdman practise. Part of the village had been reconstructed and you could easily imagine village life in their earthen houses and swimming the channel to the nearby islets to win the birdman prize.
The houses of the village of Orongo
Tribal leaders had to swim to the nearest islet, climb the sheer rock face and bring back the first egg of the migrant sooty terns
The volcano crater is 1.5km wide and 1km wide and across and is a jaw-dropping site.
Rano Kau – one of the three main volcanoes of Rapa Nui
I’d like to say my legs are so white due to the factor 50 layer, but, sadly, this is just the colour of my skin…
We made our way down the south coast dodging cows and horses that casually strolled across the road. Hanga Te’e is a particularly sad site with many fallen moai – it felt like the giants had died and returned to stone. In truth though, every moai on the island had once been toppled during the clan war period 1600-1800AD and the ones standing today have all been restored. So seeing the fallen ones was simply part of the island’s history and an exceptional sight in itself.
One of the most impressive sites of the day was Ahu Akivi – with seven moai standing tall. These are the only figures looking out to sea, with all others looking inwards from the shore to offer protection for the villagers. Even though I have seen all the pictures and know the history, I was still blown away by the sight of these pensive looking figures.
The lovely thing with Easter Island is that it is not super commercial and although there are clearly tourists about, you almost seem to have the sites to yourself. Travelling around on scooters was the perfect solution… except, of course, for the fact that your skin is exposed to the extreme sun all day long! While we had a factor 50 sunblock on, the sun sniffed out any body part not protected and burnt it to a crisp. My feet being the biggest victim! The following day we both sported a lovely, albeit very strange, sandal tan.
Our long sleeves were not because it was cold, but rather to prevent severe sunburn!
At 9.30pm that night we sat on the beach with the moai silhouetted in the background and watched the sun go down on the first day of the year. The small crowd even applauded as if to say: “Well done sun. That was pretty spectacular.”
The day may not have started so well, but this was a fitting end to a very special day.
The photos are breathtaking! Can’t wait to get there! Would have loved to have seen you riding pillion though. Where is the photo?? ?
Haha! Wish we had a photo of that! To be honest, the only thing Derek was thinking about was staying on top of the bike. The only thing I was thinking about was keeping a straight line and missing the other cars. I am sure we made the most ridiculous sight!