Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
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16-19 March 2003.
Humid air and funny locals met us at the small airport. Within five minutes it was apparent that this island was going to be interesting. We were in voyeurism paradise. (The grown up public schoolboy who clapped for his wifes attention, walked three paces in front of her and wore a blue sweater and cravat the whole time.)
After the shock of the humidity, we headed to Chez Oscars hotel which was more like a family home. Everyone was so friendly and within minutes we were taken to the local bar to drink fresh vodka, papaya and mango juice grown on the island.
We were unlucky to have some rain while we were on the island. But it didn't spoil our fab time there.
Everything was on Manyana (tomorrow) time, the roads were dirt and the place was full of wild dogs that seem to be attracted to Princess Claire
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The next morning, we both visited the toilet half awake, Jason asked for the camera while he positioned himself on the loo. I thought it was strange, but he does like to take a photo of anything. He then announced that there was a scorpion in our bathroom! Oscar ( landlord) who we thought was a bit of a naturalist with his organic garden, soon came to the rescue with a heavy shoe. We were then a tad jumpy even Jason who woke me up one morning at 5am to tell me he had been bitten by a scorpion. It was in fact a huge cockroach outside the room.........nice.
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On the first morning, after a wet start, we headed to find out all about the Easter island birdman competition. Seven men would compete to win a year of being in control of the island. To do this they had to swim to an island and back carrying an egg, avoiding sharks, stormy seas etc. to win a virgin bride.
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Jason - Easter Island porn star.
We toured the island seeing huge waves crash against the shores. We also climbed a quarry of Moai, all of varying sizes all of which were made by hand hunderds of years ago.
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The Moai (statues) are all over the place and most of them are still in the quarry. The fact that most of the work had never been finished wasn't the only thing that reminded me this was a island on the outskirts of Polynesia.
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The missing Moai that were washed from this platform have been found with the aid of a tripod.
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The last day on the island we took a trip doing what we wanted without our Dutch friend and found the most beautiful beach where we chilled out in the sun for a couple of hours before climbing a few small mounds taking photos and eating pork at the beach BBQ. More beers and packing and then the flight the next day out of Easter Island.
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This is Oscar. We woke up every morning to his breakfasts - the delights of papaya, banana, pineapple, avocado, all from his garden.
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