What a day! Visiting Easter Island today was all that it was promoted to be. While there were delays in the tendering process due to Chilean harbor rule constrictions, a medical evacuation amidst the tendering process and an engine problem on a tender, we we able to get ashore by 9:45am. We then had to wait for an hour and twenty minutes for the rest of our group to get off the ship.
We visited 4 Moai sites: Ahu Tahai (the only Moai with white eyes), Anakena (landing beach for the migration to the island), Rano Raraku (moai quarry), and Tongariki (15 moai reputed to be in line with celestial seasons). Pictures hardly do it justice! The sheer size of these sculptures is stunning and all were created with stone tools! More pictures will come later.
After the tour we enjoyed ceviche at a local restaurant and it is now the front runner in our search! It had lots of seafood and was served dry on a wooden plate. One serving was enough for both of us!
One tip I would give is to pay one's meal bill with a credit card as the exchange rate for using dollars is 500 pesos to a dollar compared to the official rate of 672 as of today. Also a regular can of soda is $4.50 and I thought the ship's price was high!
It was also surreal to approach the airport staring at a centuries old stone carving with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner parked behind it!
There was a bit of a crowd to tender back to the ship so tender tickets were needed and that seemed to bring organization to the process. While tendering was to end at 7pm, we didn't get a tender until after 7:30 and there were more after us. Back on board, the Captain announced we would be circling out in the ocean overnight and beginning the tender process an hour earlier tomorrow. Stay tuned!
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