Easter Sunday on Easter Island-

Easter Sunday on Easter Island-

Before this trip I was daydreaming over travel destinations, one of my favorite pastimes, and looked at logistics and pricing for Easter Island. I was discouraged and quickly gave up hopes due to the ridiculous quote on round trip flights alone. After being in South America a few months it was possible to weed my way through the minefield and navigate my way to a deal. Not even that it was a “deal” necessarily either, I just wasn’t booking it from the U.S. is all. Booking the flight from Argentina I was able to find a flight for less than 1/6 of the price quotes given with an IP address from the States. That alone was inspiration enough to re engage the pursuit and I mentioned the idea to the two English blokes, Max and Jack. Looking at the flight calendar we searched the cheapest option in our 10 day window of opportunity and found the cheapest, by a considerable amount, had us arriving on April 4th. Easter Sunday was on April 5th. Our minds were made up and flights booked. This year we’d be spending Easter Sunday on Easter Island.

On a bus transfer I met a group of 3 that just happened to have the same flights booked as us. They were an Asian/American couple from California named Ken and Anh and a solo traveler from Puerto Rico named Norbert. The 6 of us joined forces and, in efforts to skirt around the lofty Eastern Island hostel prices, found a deal on Air B&B for a 3 bedroom house that we would call home for our 5 days on Easter Island. With our accommodation handled we were on to phase 2 of the budgeting; food. Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is widely known as one of the world’s most remote islands, because of which it wasn’t the biggest surprise to read that some food items are marked up 300-400% from mainland Chile. The day before our flight the 6 of us met in Santiago to stock up; 6 steaks, chorizo, turkey, sandwich meat, spaghetti fixins, fajitas fixins, veggies cheese and wine. Loaded! We froze the perishables overnight, jammed everything into 2 boxes, wrapped the hell out of them and added it into our checked luggage allotment. Nearly a weeks worth of groceries. One of the English blokes looks at our curious packing list and says with a snicker; “meh, steaks on a plane.”

The homely feel of the house we rented was even cozier due to the medium sized dog named Rita we inherited. I’m definitely a dog person and was cheered by Rita’s presence. I gave her strokes and played with her all the first day and night. On our 1st morning we all wake early and go on a sunrise hike, Rita comes along with. It’s on this hike that Rita reveals her dirty little secret; Rita’s favorite pastime, as it turns out, is rolling around in fresh, steamy cow shit whenever the opportunity presents itself, and it presented itself often on our walk. Nobody dared to pet poor retarded Rita the rest of the stay.

The following afternoon she did manage to follow us up the road to a mini mart, but wouldn’t listen when we demanded she stay outside. In fact she never really listened at all. Her name might not even have been Rita for all we know. On the walk back it became apparent that good ol Rita seemed to be in heat. Every stray dog in the neighborhood, of which there were an abundance, would not permit us pass without an aggressive scene. Some packs of dogs simply snarling and other packs charging us. We walked with pockets full of stones and had to make use of them the whole way back to our house. Rita was henceforth, not only hands off like a poop covered leper, but now also forbidden to follow us anywhere. Oh yeah and we were by ourselves at the house. No property managers, housekeepers or anybody else coming by to feed the pets (There was a cat too). Just a bowl and giant bag of dog food. It turned out Rita and Dave (we named the cat Dave) really did come with the house and were OUR responsibility. A homely feel indeed. Life secret #822; if you can’t find anybody to dog and/or cat sit for you, put your house up on Air B&B and make the poor chumps staying there do it.

The Californians, Ken and Anh, were only starting out traveling (2 months into a 12 month trip) and therefore by far the most geared up backpackers I’ve met. They both have huge matching his and hers Osprey backpacks jam full of unessential essentials. Different camera gizmos and gadgets, tripods, 2 go pro’s with straps, mounting attachments and remotes, each with a laptop and the newest iPhone 6 Plus. She has a blow dryer AND hair straightener. He has a Costco size bottle of hair gel AND a separate travel case just for his hats. No shit, a hat suitcase! Their gear gave me anxiety just looking at it and I offered an intervention to help rid them of these burdens of beauty and technology. They weren’t having it. Attached to their gadgets like glue they could have opened their own CES booth, and wanted nothing to do with the thought of parting ways with any of it. At one point they acknowledged the need to change out backpacks when they had the chance, their reason for this, however, was so they can get something with wheels so they can roll it through airports. It’s here where I gave up. The other tech addict in the group was, the Puerto Rican, Norbert, but at least he had an excuse. It’s his work. Like many backpackers I’ve met he keeps a travel blog. Unlike any other backpacker I’ve met his travel blog actually generates enough revenue to sustain his traveling. Norbert has been on the road for the better part of 3.5 years and is rapidly approaching his 100th country. As much of a dream job travel writing is on paper the exact thing I feared about the idea seemed to be the case. The experience of traveling itself takes the back seat. Deadlines, expectations and the burden of creativity. The sacrifice of living freely. Just like anything and everything once you turn something into work, it becomes work. Simple as that [note to self: never become a porn star]. I grew evermore comfortable and satisfied with my humble blog page which comes with no strings attached. Maybe I can sell a few pictures or some add space on a website when I get back, maybe not. In spite of my recent post mentioning my desire for wifi, I became happy to realize my need to stay connected lies somewhere in the happy medium and my life of traveling never becomes consumed by it.

Like every small island on the planet, Rapa Nui operates in the special pace of existence known as island time. It’s a very sleepy place and surprisingly underdeveloped. “10 minutes” isn’t actually a real time frame, it’s more like a metaphor meaning “not really that long”. How far is it to the mini mart? “About 10 minutes”… How long does it take to get to the beach? “Oh it’s just up the road 10 minutes” etc. Every time we heard something is 10 minutes away we knew it could mean anything, but usually ended up meaning something closer to 45 minutes to an hour. We caught a few sunrises and a pair of sunsets, rented a car to explore the sites one day and rented bikes and hung out at the beach the next. We got in no surfing, scuba diving, fishing, nor any other island related activity, but were all strangely content with it. Easter Island, for us, was a chance to unwind and hit the reset button on this peaceful and quite island in the middle of the Pacific. Our home cooked dinners were preceded by Corona’s + various reggae playlists and followed by whisky + card games.

All in between time was tech time for the techies. Well, really anytime was tech time for the techies… For goodness sake, put down the damn iPhone and stop streaming YouTube videos at the dinner table! It’s the Easter Sunday feast we packed and prepared for, and, whats more, look around, we’re on Easter Island!

Bob