Tahiti & Mo'orea

Tahiti, baby! After arriving on an late evening flight we land on Tahiti at around midnight, and since we're going to take the 0600 ferry over to Mo'orea we have no intention of paying for a night in a le hotel and thus we spend the night on the le floor of Faa'a International Airport. And come dawn we do what most visitors do and take off of Tahiti with the proverbial tires screeching, grabbing the ferry from downtown Papeete and we're off to Mo'orea, the next island from Tahiti some 25 minutes away by sea. A green and mountainous island with the highest point at over 1200 meters, Mo'orea boasts some beaches as well as a splendid lagoon like most of the archipelago. Like they say, French Polynesia is not a beach destination but a lagoon destination. And once there, it doesn't take 10 minutes on the beachside before we spot the first of the famous stingrays, gliding quietly in the shallows near the shore!

The scene on Mo'orea turns out to be somewhat different than I was expecting. There's no waterjets screaming nearby, no masses of people around and no neon lights. What you get is a quiet spot at the picture perfect lagoon under the palm trees and surrounded by a handful of people, some cats and pure white powdery sands. My biggest initial concerns about the region were the prices, after having being told by everyone and their mother how expensive French Polynesia is. But we land a sweet deal on a barracks style room in a camping site village with the use of a full kitchen and the room located not 20 meters from the beach for 45$. And the food out of the super market next door really isn't a strain on the budget either. Relief.

It's the first time we've cooked on the trip and oh it feels fun and is a refreshing change to eat self cooked food. Another first time is having to pay for the internet, so I march into a tiny electronics shop and pay a sneering Frenchie 5$ for 1 hour of WLAN hotspot access that should work on most islands. Pffft. Well, I guess it'd be all the same to buy an expensive beer at a bar to be able to use their network as a customer.

We haven't canoed much and decide the best way to see the lagoon and the nearby motus (small islets on the edge of the reef) is to rent one. Obviously one needs snorkeling gear to go with the craft, so we stock up on water, grab the camera, masks and snorkels and head out onto the turquoise waters for a day of fun at sea. The snorkeling gear is lousy but the waters make up for it. After paddling in a strong headwind for 30 minutes we arrive to the strait between the small motus where the water is crystal clear and deep enough for proper exploration. And what do you know, we come across a few stingrays and a group doing the weird "helmet diving". They look hilarious! Mo'orea certainly is the perfect start for our Polynesian leg.

See all the Tahiti & Mo'orea pictures here!

Remote Rapa Nui

This is pretty much as far from home as we've ever been - perhaps not distance wise (not sure about Hawaii and can't be arsed to check) - but Rapa Nui aka. Easter Island being some 3700 km from the nearest continent in the middle of the Pacific, it most definitely is the most isolated place on Earth we've been to. A wonderful heat wave greets you on the door of the plane when you arrive, but soon after getting to know the place the prices of everything start to sink in and it's a real slap in the face after latin America. I mean, 20$ for a tiny crappy pizza, seriously?? Also nowadays they charge 60$ for the National Park entrance that covers some bits of the island such as the Moai "nursery" (side of a volcano where the stone heads were carved from). I'm all game for paying National Park fees to provide for the maintenance of the sites, but come on already.

After getting over that initial shock it's really easy to like Rapa Nui. The weather is pleasant at 28-30C, the ocean is crazy ink blue and the Moai (stone head sculptures) just get you thinking WTF in huge letters. The first day day on the island got spent on orientation and booking dives from Mike Rapu dive shop, who carry excellent gear by the way. At 55$ per dive, the sport seems almost cheap compared to what stuff such as food and drinks here cost. To get out of the small boat harbor push through the surf break, which was rather exciting to do in a small boat. It's somewhat hard to grasp that the sunset is around 2100 here; not something you're used to in the tropics. And the streets are pretty much deserted before 1000 in the morning.

Second day morning: we're off to dive The Moai, a local dive site made globally unique by a submerged Moai put there some 7-8 years ago by the owner of the dive shop in remembrance of his father, or so the story went. Nonetheless, quite a sight to run into a 3-4m tall Moai under water! Rapa Nui diving is famous for the amazing visibility of up to 60 meters; we're not quite lucky to witness that though as the weather is a bit rowdy and the silt from the bottom causes to viz to drop to around 10-25 meters. Still good, though, and the 3 dives we did here were real nice.

The island is about 15-20 km across and the ahu / moai sites are pretty much scattered around, so what's the best way to visit all of them? On the back of a mountain bike of course! At 18$/day, the mountain bike rentals were one of the best deals on the island and we enjoyed our 45km/7 hours ride entirely, with perhaps the exception of the last 5km when all the strength had already fled and every uphill was a battle. Seeing the beautiful Anakena beach about midride was such a bliss, and we got to frolic around in the blue sea and enjoy the dazzling white sands and some el cheapo empanadas.

Travel tip for Rapa Nui: try and social engineer the WLAN password from one of the expensive restaurants on the mainstreet and then go to the row of minimarkets with tables set out on the patio. The WLAN is available there and the price for a lager is 1/3 of what the expensive ones charge. Touche! Also get a place with a kitchen to prepare your own food; nutrition seems to be the biggest expense on the Rapa Nui. 

See all the pictures from Rapa Nui here!

Next stop: Tahiti and French Polynesia.

A 2861km Bus Journey

In order to get back to Santiago to catch our onward flight we had 4 days to cover a distance of just under 3000 km from Nazca, Peru. Two sleeper night buses (11 and 27 hours) and two day versions did the trick, allowing us to overnight twice on the Chilean coast in mellow beach towns of Arica and La Serena. In total the time spent in transit was almost 50 hours, including the time on the border and checkpoints.

La Serena also provided the first proper metal bar of the trip. Casually wandering the streets in the warm afternoon sun we noticed a sign touting the cheapest beers since ages, just 1$/0.5l draft (!) so in we go and arriving to the courtyard we notice the familiar tempo and moshing long hair! And so we end up spending most of the afternoon / night in Duna Classic Rock Bar, enjoying chilled beers and the company of some awesome local metalheads. Rock!


The next day we're happily back in warm (32C, what! how come it's so hot down here?) Santiago, sitting in a garden of the hotel enjoying the long awaited proper internet connection they provide. Tomorrow morning will bring the end of the South American leg of the trip and take us to the Polynesian islands where the endless deep blue of the Pacific awaits. About time, too!

South America Recap

Mountains, high altitude and some more mountains. Oh and lots and lots of sand dunes, rock piles, geoglyphs and still a few more mountains. Strangest landscapes ever as well as dizzying vistas and canyons. And all this for a price so low it makes me weep to think about what's to come after leaving here. The month here proved to be pretty unforgettable experience wise, but we're more than glad to leave the thin air and cold nights behind and embrace the warm sun once more. Next stop: Polynesia.

Marveling the Nazca Lines

Last stop on our Peruvian excursion was to make a brief 2-day visit to Nazca, home to the mysterious kilometers long straight lines and the giant animal figures worked on some 500 sq. km of the desert for an unknown reason ages ago. This included a 10 hour overnight bus ride from Arequipa, one overnight stay and the back on the bus for another 12-13 hours to reach the Chilean border down south. While Nazca is not just about the lines - they boast the world's largest sand dune at over 2km tall to be conquered with a sandboard, for example - we couldn't squeeze other activities in our rather short stay. We only have 4 days till our flight out of Santiago, and the distance to cover on the bus is quite big.

The only proper way to view the lines is to hop on a small Cessna and take a flight over the plateau. These flights used to be dirt cheap only a few years ago, but after some fatal incidents in 2010, the flight safety has been upped greatly and naturally the costs have followed. The going price for a same-day reservation seemed to be 90-100$, though you might be able to shave some off with an advance booking. We went straight to the airport to shop around, but every company said they were full, but an agency back in the town managed to get us on a plane for the next morning, with a slightly better deal too.

What they do with the Cessna is they fly you over some 13 of the figures, banking the plane left and right so everyone gets a nice view. The first two turns were gut-turning, I'm assuming the captain did that on purpose :P After those, the ride was very pleasant and thanks to the near-perfect weather, we had a blast wondering about those strange markings below. Wonder what the people who made them had been thinking? 'Lets spend a few decades building something for the guys hundreds of years from now to scratch their heads over'?

After the flight we had the whole afternoon to kill so we paid a big hotel to let us use their pool / bar and lazed in the sun reading books. With Nazca done, this concludes our Peruvian segment of the trip; what's left of the South American leg is the seemingly endlessly long busride down south to Santiago!





See all the pictures from Peru here!

Welcoming 2011 On The Beach

We wanted to be on the beach to greet the new year. So after some intense staring at Google Maps and Lonely Planet we landed on heading to Mollendo, a small coastal town some 120km out of Arequipa. Completely surrounded by desert and mountains, the is a small oasis for Arequipenos flocking to the seas for some R & R in the January - March season. As it happens, the place was perfect for celebrating the turning of another year.

The most unforgettable sight of the first day after getting into town was at the beachfront cafe where we saw these two dogs humping; while watching canines have marital relations might not exactly make the news in most situations, this one was quite the sight: a small German shapherd bitch was being taken by a petite white hound and suddenly a giant monster of a dog, apparently the former's "hubby", rushes from its hideout and charges the smaller white male. Doing what dogs do when surrendering, the white one rolls onto its back and exposes his throat, only to forget he's still inside the bitch and to end up in a weird position where he is stuck to his maid. Pushed around by the big dog, the four-legged lady starts to gallop around, towing her young suitor - who still seems to maintain a raging boner - around on the asphalt by his cock. Lol. It takes them more than 10 minutes to detach.

On the New Year's Eve the weather is just gorgeous and nothing seems better than lazing around a pool, having a few beers and enjoying the view over a beach. We visit an Aqua Park briefly and after an afternoon nap we're off to the celebration. We meet this Arequipena couple whose man seems to be doing cocaine all the time; he keeps stuffing his face with the white stuff he keeps calling "Peru's Finest" and at one point he apparently proposes us to join him and his fat girlfriend in a foursome on the beach. Hahah, as if. So we ditch them and have a brilliant night watching fireworks over the beach. The next afternoon we catch a bus up north, but not before getting invited to a snack of Ceviches in the home of iour Hospedaje keepers. Muchos gracias amigos!