26/09/2019 –Day off Easter Island, Chile

We had set our alarms early, and met Petra by the car at 07:15. Josh drove the three of us up to Tongoriki – a set of Maoi heads that you can watch the sunrise behind. Sunrise here isn’t until 0800 so it wasn’t too much of a challenge to get there on time. There were a lot of people there already as it is the place to be to get the classic photo! The few clouds in the sky were cast a brilliant iridescent pink colour and it was definitely worth getting up and out for. Comically Josh forgot his camera! So we took a few snaps on the phone and then just tried to soak it in. We got there in time to watch the golden sun pop up from the horizon across the ocean and the long shadows cast from the heads made a zebra crossing across the grass. There was a lot of sea mist in the air, it was quite atmospheric but difficult to capture on a phone. Josh always gets a pang of sadness at the loss of his big camera in these moments (although I suppose he still wouldn’t be able to get the shot if he forgot his camera!) We drove back to our accommodation and Petra realised she has lost her black bum bag with $200 in it, which she thought she had left on the table outside our studio. It remains lost and is a bit of a mystery as to what happened to it unfortunately. Josh and I went inside and had some scrambled eggs and a coffee, got back into bed and read our books. There is still no water either in the main house or in our studio, which I can tell is on Peters mind constantly, as he keeps saying how expensive this problem will be to get fixed. At 12:00 we had lunch up at the main house, mashed potato (made from powder on the island) and a chicken and vegetable salsa. Peter told us his friend has given him some morphine so he is self-medicating/dosing on that. Tiare said that if Peter was a woman he would never be able to endure child birth, to which we all (except Peter) couldn’t help but laugh at! I tried to explain to Peter why self medicating on morphine may be unwise, and that he should not be driving, but there is no telling Peter what to do. Especially from a young female! We helped clear up and had a coffee with Petra whilst Peter and Tiare drove to pick up Leonora from school. Josh and I went out in the car to Ana Kai Tangata – a cave by the ocean that has some remnants of original cave paintings (done prior to 1914) of terns – the species on which the bird man competition focuses. It was a beautifully clear and sunny day, and the sea crashing into the bay of the cave was so forceful, creating a milky white turbulent pool of water, it was mesmerising to watch, so watch it we did. Next we drove to Ana Te Pahu, a huge inland cave made from a lava tube, with banana trees planted in the natural openings. People used to live and sleep in the cave, and we saw the oven they used to cook with on the ground. We wandered around the dark cave, with only Joshs phone torch as a source of light. It was quite eery! Next we drove back home and relaxed for half an hour before going for a jog. We did another 5km run along the coastline, it was gorgeous but absolutely scorching! When we got back Peter was fiddling around with the boiler. Josh had a look and managed to fix the problem, so we have hot water again! We had showers and a burrito dinner. We met Petra and drove into town where we piled into the theatre. We saw the Kari Kari Ballet Cultura show. It was such a fun performance! There was live music, singing, and dancing. It was sort of like tribal drumming music with ukuleles and guitars, the men did a tribal dance wearing big feather headpieces and not much else, and the women did some incredible belly dancing. It was really lively and the crowd got involved too, Josh went on stage amongst some other audience members and had a little dance! It was explained to the audience at the start of the show via a projected video that the groups aim is to preserve their Rapa Nui culture, the performers learn their traditional music, songs and dance, as well as learning how to wood-carve, fish and farm using traditional methods.

We drove Petra back home and then we drove back to Tongoriki (where we saw the sunrise) for Josh to make the most of the clear, moonless sky. He took some beautiful pictures of the milky way, and was excited about seeing two nebulars that he had never seen before, apparently only visible from the Southern hemisphere. I got out the car and appreciated the sky for a few minutes. Then tried to talk to Josh who was fully absorbed in his camera. Then got in the car because I was cold! I realise this is probably not my sport! I had brought my kindle but only realised at this moment I couldn’t use it because of the light it would emit. So I laid the seat back and tried to have a snooze. It was midnight and we have been getting into quite a good routine of going to bed early, so we were both pretty tired by the time we drove home. We got in and went to bed, it didn’t take long before we were in the land of nod.