Travel Blog

Our last night in Mendoza was also our last night in Argentina and our last night travelling with Dave so we felt the full brunt of it busing the beautiful eight hour track through the Andes to Valparaiso on the coast of Chile. For such a famous place so steeped in history we couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed. We understood that we couldn’t expect everywhere to be as awe-inspiring as, say, the Moreno Glacier, but Valparaiso was downright grotty and smoggy and full of rude people. We still did the obligatory walk of the city and took the token funicular. Actually at the top of the funicular we did find the one part of Valpo that was pretty with a decent view over the city and harbour. Our other day in Valparaiso was spent visiting nearby Vina Del Mar. We had heard there were great beaches there and I’m sure had the weather not been so grim the beaches would have been more appealing. We did find a nice little establishment named “Margarita” near the beach which we spent a good deal of the day in chatting to the friendly waiter.

The next day we were off to Santiago, our final destination in mainland South America. Due to its location, Santiago is a popular starting point for South American travellers. As such we had met a lot of people who had already been there and most of them had said it was boring. Perhaps because of this we went there with low expectations but we were pleasantly surprised. We found Santiago to be quite quaint and pretty and because it was Easter weekend it was pretty calm. The amazing weather helped too! We spent a day exploring the city including a funicular to a park at the top of a hill overlooking the city. After a good nap there we walked back to our hostel through a groovy bar area making a mental note to return later which we did. We had plans to cook a big roast on Easter Sunday but the unexpected excellent weather forced us to choose the more summery option of salmon steaks with Mediterranean veg and rosemary & garlic spuds. Despite a bit of a conflict of interests between me and the oven, the meal turned out delicious much to the envy of the others in the hostel.

Unfortunately the next day when we went to the Lan Chile office to confirm our flights to Easter Island we received a nasty shock. Because we hadn’t taken our flight from Ushuaia to Santiago a month previously, all our reservations with Lan had been cancelled. The upshot of this was we had to go to Easter Island a day and a half later giving us only 2 full days on the island. After a while of feeling gutted we decided to perk up and vowed that we would make the most of our 2.5 days there. Getting off the plane in Easter Island we were greeted by hordes of friendly, dark-skinned, Hawaiian looking islanders who were placing flowers around the heads of anyone who would let them. We hadn’t booked any accommodation as we’d heard the cheapest thing to do was to just turn up at the airport and choose from the hundreds of different guesthouses trying to get you to stay in their place. It was tough but we managed to choose one. We arrived there after dark so we couldn’t see anything around our guesthouse. Our first morning we awoke to the sound of crashing waves and when we looked outside we realised that we were on the edge of a peninsula with the sea right outside our door. Great stuff!

Our first day was spent visiting the island museum, which gave us a good knowledge of the island and its history, and checking out the various tour operators. That afternoon we attempted to climb to the crater of one of the 3 volcanos that formed the island 2 million years ago but we got horribly lost and ended up trekking off road for a few hours in the intense heat and humidity of a pacific island. On our 2nd day there we took a tour of the south side of the island which contains the majority of Moai (“those statues”). We went with a guide who only insists on taking small groups so there was only 4 of us which was great. Throughout the day we saw countless Moai – some upright, some toppled, some with hats, some in transit and some unfinished, still carved into the rock. We also climbed to the top of the “statue factory” which is the quarry that the statues were carved from giving us an incredible view of the island. The best sight, however, was the tongariki statues which are 15 restored Moai diligently standing in a row. That evening we went to Tahai to see the only statue with eyes. As its on the west side of the island we stayed there till sunset which was beautiful. Later that night we went into town to a hotel that showed a film every night produced by Kevin Costner called Rapa Nui. It was actually pretty good and offered one theory as to the fall of the Moai culture. The next morning (our last day in South America) we were up at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise at Tongariki which is on the east side of the island. We rented a car with a girl staying in our guesthouse and drove out there at 6am. Unfortunately thanks to an abundance of cloud the sunrise wasn’t great but it was still good to see the best statues one more time before we left. We also headed up to the crater that we had failed to reach 2 days earlier which was definitely worth it. There were some Connemara-esque views including a great one of the small rock island that was swum to every year to elect a new island leader during the birdman culture.

The weather was beautiful and sunny as we were leaving for Sydney via Santiago and Auckland which was good since the waiting lounge at Easter Island airport is a gorgeous garden with a Moai statue in it. The massive flight across the Pacific was long and tedious but we arrived in Sydney airport eventually in good spirits. After meeting Nikki in arrivals we headed to town to meet Shauna. As we sat there making plans for the week we realised there are tonnes of Andrews people currently living in Sydney. Should be a fun week!

Me with three of the Moai statues at Tongariki