Christmas Time on Easter Island and The Day That Wasn't

Update: 24

Crossing over the Andes from Mendoza and descending via Aconcagua to Santiago is a scenic route worth taking. I'm just glad that this border crossing is between Argentina and Chile, geographically excluding Bolivia from any involvement. The road switches back and forth on itself as it drops about three kilometres. Fortunately Argie buses are comfortable and modern and the drivers, unlike their neighbours to the north, enjoy their lives sufficiently to want to see another day.

Santiago is a pleasant surprise. We'd heard about the smog that plagues it and were expecting something like Lima where blue sky is something children can only read about. But the air here, although trapped in a basin, doesn't have the same asphyxiating acidity that we'd been preparing ourselves for. I think this is due to local measures being taken to clear it - more than once we saw officials performing what looked like emissions tests on buses.

I'm not going to try and pretend that we did anything worth writing about in Santiago - we were only there for three nights - so we caught up with various friends and my cousin who passed through at the same time and just enjoyed more good wine and speaking some English.

We did have a brush with the Colombian police who were being shown around the botanical gardens by a Chilean officer who wore Aviator sunglasses and bore his resemblance to Ponch from CHiPs with the kind of '80s pride not often found in New Millennium heterosexual circles.

For the first time on this trip, we were asked for our photos. Happy to oblige, we shared some laughs with the kind of people more accustomed to hunting guerrillas than jollying with tourists. When asked what I did for a living, out of habit now, I made up my profession. Not for the first time, I claimed to be a photographer. Normally, that's good enough and I can get away from the topic without revealing that conversation killer "I'm an Accountant". Luck wasn't with me this time, though: Javier's (a lieutenant, I think) eyes lit up and he started grilling me with questions about how to get into the profession, did I show my work in any exhibitions and have I been published. Trying to brush over the subject (and not being in the habit of lying to the Colombian police) I said I did travel photography. He then pulled out a checklist of shutter-speed to aperture ratios that he's been memorising - as he's a photography student - for my comment. I had to rely on awful Spanish to explain that I can just "feel" when something is right. Fortunately he was happy to leave it at that - I think he thinks I'm a virtuoso now that I work by "feel". Which is a damn sight better than him seeing me for what I am: a lying number-cruncher.

***

It's five hours to Easter Island from Chile and miles away from anywhere else. I think the nearest piece of land is Pitcairn Island which isn't exactly the South Pacific's super power (especially since all eight men of their work force are now jailed paedophiles) but Easter Island doesn't have that problem - the taxi driver who took us to our hostel told us that that "the police come here for a holiday because there are no delinquents", which I found comforting.

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as the locals call it, is unique. It is the only place on earth where one can find a radio station that plays Lionel Richie and Barry Manilow remixed into an easier-listening, less offensive sound than the originals. If you didn't think that was possible, it is. Radio Rapa Nui, or whatever it's called, has specialised in this and all day, religiously, the whole island floats along to the syrupy sound of a large hotel foyer bar. Every single shop emits the painfully inoffensive sound of a gentler, more orchestral Lady in Red or Groovy Kind of Love than even Chris de Burgh or Phil Collins at their prime would have deigned to give their most middle-of-the-road adult contemporary audience.

The island also has some unusual sculptures.  We hired a scooter for the day to take in the sights and after an embarrassing accident from a stationary position (the gross motor control equivalent to falling over while lying down) we opened the throttle and hit the road. At one point we had that baby burning at 50km/h.

It's a thirty kilometre round trip with about ten different archaeological sites but only three impressive areas where Moai have been restored. One at a quarry where some are still left unfinished in the rock face but where the photograph that represents Easter Island in most children's geography books was taken, another where fifteen giant Moai in a row stand just a few meters from where the waves hit the rocks and our favourite: four and a half restored Moai with red rocks on their heads for hats standing on your typical south pacific beach with white sand and palm trees.

Browsing through a souvenir shop at the airport, I came across a book whose author had been to Rapa Nui eight times. While it is beautiful, it's tiny and after three days, we were happy to move on back to Santiago. I think it was due to code-share limitations on our ticket, but we found ourselves in the unusual position of flying five hours back to Santiago, changing clocks forward by 2 hours, spending the night and then flying back past Easter Island over the date line to New Zealand landing two days later. We left Chile at 10.50pm on 3 December and arrived in Auckland at 4.20am on the 5th. It is purely a coincidence that Tam's dad's birthday is the 4th, but since the 4th didn't happen, I reckon we save on a birthday present.

Checking in at the LAN desk at Santiago airport I sneaked a free weigh-in by standing on the luggage scale. To my surprise (and that of everyone queuing behind us) I cashed in at a cool 86kg. That in itself is not serious, it's just that when I weighed myself coming into Argentina three months ago, I was 78kg. I'll let you do the maths, but I haven't been hanging out in gyms.

***

As I lie in bed now, wide awake, the birds are starting to tweet, the sky is getting lighter, my missus is snoring and I could do with a beer. I hope this jet lag doesn't last too long.

We're going farming tomorrow in Rural New Zealand. Until then, take it easy.