Inner Easter Island

For the past 2 days, I’ve been sticking to the coastlines of Easter Island. Only because that’s where most of the moai statues are, and also because the tour buses don’t go inland due to the lack of paved roads.
In order to explore the area, you’d need to rent a car, scooter, bike, ATV, bicycle, or a horse. Since my Korean friend (forgot the name already...) had rented an ATV last night, I decided to hop on the back. My Spanish friend (also name forgotten) took the healthier route and chose the bicycle.

Let me just say that I am extremely glad not to have chosen the bicycle. Not only were the roads unpaved, there were a LOT of uphill routes.
The ATV was rough going as well, though. That thing kicked up SOOOOO much dust, my jacket and backpack turned bright red. Myself included. I was covered head to toe in red dust when we finished! Not kidding.

I think that the primary objective of heading inland is to enjoy nature, to appreciate the nothingness of the remote island.
Easter Island has an extensive network of underground caves like this one. Since none of us had a torch, we didn’t get to go too far in. But I don’t think we really missed anything. A cave is a cave, right?!

Being a volcanic island, there are lot of small mountains/hills on Easter Island. My Spanish friend had the brilliant idea of climbing one. Even the highest one is only about 600m, so it’s not too bad. I agreed to go along.
We got lost trying to get to the foot path up the mountain, and ended up opening wooden gates leading to horse stables and farms. Must be someone’s private property… Since no one was around to kick us out, I roamed the area and discovered how pineapples were grown. Rather small, no? The only way up from here was through more gates. Obviously, we weren’t on the right path. The sun was beating down and Waru was getting hungry = Waru ain’t climbing up the mountain. The Korean guy wasn’t up to the climbing either, so the two of us headed back down, leaving the Spaniard to tackle the climb on his own.

On our way back to the village, we stopped by the one remaining moai site I hadn’t yet seen – Ahu Akivi. This is the only set of moais located inland, overlooking the ocean. Not many tourists make it up here; it was nice to have the whole place to ourselves.
Now, I think I’ve managed to see all of the moai statues on Easter Island!

As soon as I got back to the guest house, me and my backpack needed a very thorough cleansing. I was easier. The backpack had red dust embedded all over! Even though I wiped down several times, the dust remained. As a result, my white T-shirt the next day turned red wherever it touched… Sigh. Can't wait to do laundry back in Santiago!

The rest of the evening was quite relaxing. We individually cooked our own meal (pasta for me as usual), went down to the coast to catch the sunset (such a bright red/orange color!), ate taro ice cream once again, and had some entertaining travel talk.