Easter Island-Santiago Day 3

Day 3 – Sunday, November 25, 2007 – Fly to Easter Island, Reception at Mataveri Airport, Orientation

On the Map, please click on Satellite/Hybrid

It was a very short night after getting back to the hotel after our late dinner show last night. Our wake-up call came at 4:20 this morning. We showered, finished packing our smaller bags, and took our larger luggage to the front desk for storage.

When we return from Easter Island we will be at the same hotel in Santiago, so we arranged for luggage storage at the Diego de Velasquez while we are away. There are very strict weight limits on internal flights within Chile and Easter Island.

Packing lighter bags for those four+ days at Easter Island, leaving behind all the extra clothing, warm clothing, boots, etc. that will be needed later in Patagonia, made sense. Cold weather should not be a problem at Easter Island!

The hotel provided a light breakfast and coffee for us early this morning. We were all ready at 5:45 when Eduardo and Freddy arrived to take us to the airport.

We arrived at the LAN ticket counters early and had to wait until the agents processed a flight to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We were the first group in line to get our boarding passes to Easter Island. We said goodbye to Eduardo and went to our gate area.

Many of the shops were open so Gennie bought a few postcards. A few of our group members took advantage of another cup of coffee and a snack at Dunkin Donuts.

At 8:15 we passed through security and found it to be very easy. They did not have the strict TSA regulations on carrying water or other liquids onto the aircraft. The agents did not even ask me to take my computer out of my backpack.

Our full flight boarded at 8:45 and by 9:10 we were in the air and headed for Easter Island. We had a comfortable flight in Coach over 2300 miles of nothing ocean and clouds. During the flight I sorted pictures and caught up on the day’s journal.

We arrived on Easter Island 12:00PM and the landing was quite good as one end of the run way starts at the ocean’s edge and the other end is at the other short side of the island.

Once we got our luggage we were met by Patricia Ramirez with a sign “Duane Feisel Group”. We posed with her, Chico our driver, and his daughter Hannah right outside the front door of the small terminal and then went to the Hanga Roa hotel.

We quickly unpacked, checked our emails and then went on a walk to get oriented to Easter Island and what this marvelous site has to offer. We walked all around this only city on the island and then went to a small store to get bottled water.

We found out that in Chile it's called Isla de Pascua and the natives there call it Rapa Nui or Te Pito te Henua (world's belly button). Easter Island is 14 miles long by 7 miles wide and it's actually about the only city not on the Panamericana Continent, about 2,332 miles off the coast.

Known for its Moais (stone statues), Easter Island is a must for people into ancient mysteries. Some of these Moais weigh up to 50 tons and are over 25 feet high. Hopefully, we will learn more about this ancient culture and the origin of these statues.

As a part of Chile, the government decided that the standard time in Rapa Nui would be two hours later instead of the four that would make the sunrise and sunset natural. Sunrise while we are here will be around 7:15 in the morning and sunset will be almost 9 PM. Our days will have to be governed by our watches, not by the sun.

When we returned to the hotel after our hike, we met several of our friends and exchanged stories, ate some snacks and shared a couple of bottles of good Chilean wine.

We joined our travel group for dinner at 7:30 at the hotel dining room and had very good meals. The food was very plentiful and we left the dining room a little after 9:30.

Accommodation: Hanga Roa Hotel - - - Meals: B, plane

Temperature at 1 PM – 71

Humidity at 1 PM – 75%