Easter Island

After much techno-stress, I am back online. There were several problems. The most important one being that the woman who helps in the Computer Learning Center ate something on shore in Valparaiso that made her sick for several days. The other important one being that my mind seems to be disengaged most of the time! At any rate, it appears that at least everything electronic is now finally working the way it is supposed to. (Be sure to see Valparaiso which I intend to post at the same time as this.)

By the way, I have really enjoyed the little compass on my new watch. I keep looking at it to see what direction the ship is going and a couple of times, I have used it to get oriented when we are wandering about on shore.

The sea days have been terrific as always. The ship has a very homey-feel about it and I have never felt crowded onboard. Well, except when waiting for the tenders at Easter Island.

Belonging to Chile, Easter Island, known in the local language as Rapa Nui, is 2500 miles from South America and another 1200 miles to the next nearest spot, Pitcairn Island. Easter Island is only 45 square miles and has a population of 3000, many of whom work for the government or military. The island was formed by three main volcanoes, now extinct.

The QE2 arrived early in the morning, we had breakfast as usual and then waited for our turn to board the tender to get to shore. The approach to the port village of Hanga Roa is narrow and with very large rocks on each side of the channel. It is so narrow that only one tender can be in the channel at one time, so with about 70 people in each tender, you can imagine that it was quite a process to get a good percentage of our 1800 passengers onto shore. We usually go on our own on shore, but on Easter Island, we thought it would be a good idea to go on the ship’s tour to have a knowledgeable English-speaking guide. Our tour was fabulous. The guide was a young man from Scotland who has lived on the island off and on over about 5 years. We understood his English and he knew a lot about the island, the culture of the people and about the moai.

We traveled over unpaved and very dusty roads in a non-air-conditioned van to our first stop, Rano Kau, one of the island’s 3 calderas in which there is a freshwater lake. Then on to Orongo Village, a restored ceremonial village on top of the rim of the crater. The homes there are thought to postdate the moai. This village is the focal point of the Birdman Cult, in which the strongest of the tribes competed each year for the leadership of the tribes. Our final stop was at Ahu Akivi, where there are 7 restored moai. As the civilization supporting the moai collapsed, all of the moai were toppled over, so all standing moai have been restored. My most memorable image of Easter Island, however, is a Polynesian couple, dressed in ceremonial costume dancing together. Wait until you see that photo!

After the tour, we road through the town back to the pier and the tenders. We passed an enormous runway that was built by the US as an emergency landing site for the space shuttle program. Although it has never been used by the shuttle program, it does get used by commercial airlines bringing tourists to the island. The wait for the tenders was mostly in the hot sun, temperatures felt like about 85 degrees. The ship had put up a large awning to provide some shade and brought water for us to drink, but with no toilet facilities until we returned to the ship, I had only a few sips of water. We returned happy, hot and dusty.

There is another cocktail party tonight. Three nights ago, we were invited to the Captain’s Cocktail Party on the open Funnel Deck. It was a spectacular evening, with the sun just setting, a warm breeze blowing and the sea gently rocking the ship. Everyone looked wonderful, including me in my cobalt blue dress and Jerry in his tux. The next night was a large cocktail party in the Queen’s Room for all of the people who had just become Gold Members of the World Club, Cunard’s loyalty program. We just became Gold and love our new 4 hours of free Internet time to use before the port of Singapore, when we will get 4 more hours. Last night there was no party, but we needed to sleep anyway. And tonight there is a cocktail party in the Yacht Club sponsored by the Hotel Manager. We have dressed for so many formal nights, I am beginning to wonder if my clothes will be worn out by the end of the cruise. I have sent my white dressy jacket to be dry-cleaned, which to my surprise will cost about the same as at home. The laundry service is another pricing scale altogether, so the launderette was quite busy today when we once again did 2 loads of clothes. As one woman said, she wasn’t about to pay $2.50 to have one pair of her husband’s tighty-whiteys laundered.

Tonight when we go to bed, we turn the clock back 2 hours. Right now we are at the same time as Florida so this will begin our westward travel and repeated moving the clock and then crossing the International Dateline in a few days. Tomorrow we have an unscheduled stop – Pitcairn Island, made famous by the Mutiny on the Bounty. We will go close enough to have a couple dozen locals come aboard to talk to us about their island as the ship circumnavigates Pitcairn a couple of time. That is the plan right now.