We were both feeling sluggish and tired from being on the go for the last 8 days or so with little rest. And I was woken to the sound of a large group of dogs barking around 3 then the roosters kicked in, and they woke Kim too. So we took most of a day of rest, reading, trying to upload pictures (with some slight success.) It was cool and nice out so we sat on our porch a while.
A large family came at around 2, dropped off by a shuttle. There are no open places here (only three cabins in total anyways). Staff is here until 1-2 and then they leave, so we saw them calling. Apparently Marae has two locations, and the other is a building by the beach. The driver took them to the wrong one as Vero said she was waiting for them there when we saw her this evening. The group all started laughing, so apparently they realized the error that they were dropped at the wrong place. The bus came back shortly after, so I'm sure Vero called.
I'm not sure if she manages or owns the place. She's as nice as Camilla and the service here has been so wonderful. She drives an FJ Cruiser so clearly is doing well for herself.
We decided to go to Ahu Tahai, a ceremonial complex right near the town. On the way we stopped in a shop to buy some statues but her credit card machine wasn't charged and she asked us to come back.
We then went to Ahu Tahai and it was really beautiful. First there were a bunch of large stones with petroglyphs carved on them. It's interesting to see them as I have seen a lot of petroglyphs in Utah and these are three dimentional and not just etchings. A lot of faces and shapes that were beautiful, all overlooking lava rock cliffs. We then got to the complex which had an ahu of 7-8 statues, and then a single one with the eyes in it. That's the first one we have seen with eyes and it's kind of creepy, honestly! There was a lot to see in this area. At this time it got sunny and was quite humid so we took our time exploring. We saw several 'chicken houses' there as well and what looked like a very old boat ramp between the two areas of moai.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahu_Tahai
We decided to go to dinner on this side of town, at a place Camilla suggested called La Kalenta. We tried to go for lunch there with Stacey and Chris and it was closed, so we tried again and were successful. Apparenly they serve drinks until 6 pm at which point they serve dinner too, so we enjoyed watching the waves crash up on the lava rocks and the mini beach of sand, and watched several surfers dancing on the waves. The cargo ship is still docked there.
Unfortunately the waves moved back in so we were unable to view the sunset from here. This restaurant is next door to the place we went last night, so the views would have been wonderful. Guess it wasn't meant to be. And given that an airline strike is starting on the 15th, I don't want to even say that I wish we could have seen the sunset from this area as we'll get stuck! 3-4 days is enough. I suppose we could have rented a car and done some exploring or the other small beach, but we're a bit moai'd out.
Dinner was wonderful. Kim got crab tortelini in fresh-made black pasta with a cream sauce. I got tuna over sweet potatoes, which were purple. I got a pisco sour which was interestingly made of lime (instead of lemon) and had a sugar rim.
We went back to the shop to get our statues, and walked to a small ice cream shop that Stacey told us about and got small cones. Kim wanted to get some soda, at which time the floodgates opened. Thankfully I grabbed her umbrella and she had a water resistant coat with a hood. So much for not packing wet clothes in our suitcases! We took advantage of the lovely drying rack provided and hopefully with some breeze in the little room outside (it has wood slats and open areas for the breeze to come through) our clothes may be dry.
We will get picked up tomorrow at 12:30. The airport is literally a five minute walk so thankfully there's only one flight in and out a day!
This island is definitely worth seeing and taking a tour to see the moai is the way to go to get the history. Apparently there have been some new finds including a kneeling moai, but it's not on this tour. And I had been told that some have been found with the bodies under the ground but it sounds from our guide yesterday that that's because of the elements washing sand up around the statue and not that they were buried. All were on platforms with the entire moai exposed.. those partly underground we saw at the quarry mostly and that was from the elements.
Good night!!
s
No comments:
Post a Comment