February 10, 2019 – Easter Island, Chile
A bucket list day, we have been waiting to get here all week. Our goal is to see Rano Raraku, Ahu Tonariki, Anakena Beach and Tahai.
The ship pulled in about 7am and we were already in line for tender tickets at 6:30 am. We were given tickets for tender 12. That means there would be 11 tenders that would leave before us. During the wait we could do whatever we wished on ship. We would be called over the loudspeakers when our tender was ready.
The tender ships are stored above our deck so we could watch them being lowered and prepared. Customs officials gave Captain Mercer clearance to begin operation at 8:30. A few tenders were out at sea and they were testing conditions. The seas looked calm but there were rolling swells that were hard to notice until the tender was next to the ship. Once next to the loading platform, the tender would rise and fall with the swells. It was going to be a challenge. I estimated the swells at 10 ft by the amount the tender moved against our ship. The folks that booked the early HAL trip at $299.00 per person were first and they began boarding. The tender holds 150 and it was taking a minimum of 15 seconds a person. Sometimes it took 90 seconds as the crew allowed the swells to subside. I knew we were in trouble. Would they even get to tender 12 at this rate? We went to lunch as they called tenders 7, 8, and 9. Calling 3 at a time told me that people were beginning to drop out of the tendering process because time was growing short. Good news for us. Of course the call for tenders 10, 11, and 12 came in the middle of lunch. We quickly went back to our room, grabbed our gear and headed for Deck A.
We waited in line as people were getting off of the tender where we were to board. They already had their experience on the island and were in no hurry to move aside. It took 30 minutes to load our tender. A process that takes about 10 minutes in calm water. We had no problem with safety but many of the folks should have passed on this. They weren’t physically able to do it without lots of help.
Finally loaded and we were off. We learned later that the Captain cancelled tendering after we left. We made it on the last tender!
The trip out to the island was smooth. About 15 minutes passed and we were there.
Once on shore we headed out to the place where we had a rental car waiting. The port we came into was about a mile further from the one that is used most of the time. It had better conditions for us today. It just meant that we had a 1.5 mile walk instead of .5 mile. We happily walked along side the road, commenting now and then about how much this island reminded us of Hawaii. Hot, humid, palm trees, and cacti. We did pass a few horses and passed many roaming dogs.
The rental place was in the town of Hanga Roa. We quickly signed our rental agreement, looked over the car, pointed out the few scratches and dents and then headed out for the quarry where the Moai came from. I didn’t get the sense that the woman would hassle me when I returned the car. Insular was the name of the company. It was highly recommended by other travelers.
I used an app called maps.me. This allowed a user to download the maps ahead of time and use them with GPS. No cell service or wifi was necessary once the maps were downloaded. They operated just like apple or google maps. Directions were clearly given.
Time was our enemy. Last tender back was 6:30 pm. Miss it and they do not wait. I already checked out flights from Easter Island to Tahiti. Not cheap.
The next 40 mins of consisted of driving, looking for Moai, and waiting for cows and horses to clear out of the road. Beautiful views of the volcano, and ocean.
We arrived at Ranu Raraku and grabbed our cameras. We stopped at the entrance to pay our $80 per person fee. They wouldn’t take our money. We had to purchase a ticket back in the city! I tried everything. Sob story, bribing the attendant, complete ignorance. Nothing. We were turned away. We did try to go around the stone wall and walk pass the entrance but were caught by the observant Chilean attendant. We took as many pictures as we could. There wasn’t enough time to drive back to town, get a ticket, and drive back.
This is the quarry where the Moai were sculpted. The Moai here are in different stages of completion. We got back in the car to see if there was another place we could hop over the stone and barbed wire fence. We did find a place.
It was time to get back in the car and drive to Ahu Tonariki. This is a restored, 656 ft Platform of Tongariki. 15 re-erected statues. We certainly didn’t make the mistake of going to the check in area this time to show tickets we didn’t have.
As you can see we were able to get in and take numerous photos.
We spent at most 20 minutes at this site. Time to move on! Our next stop was Anakena Beach. My navigator kept me appraised of the time to destination. We couldn’t mess around here. It seemed as if all 6000 residents we out on the road or at one of the many beaches. I couldn’t help having flashbacks to “Deliverance” as we navigated past pickup trucks full of island residents. When we finally arrived, …