16 Feb 02   This day we explored the city, especially the down town area, and ranged to one of the two local mountain parks.  Cerro Santa Lucia is the smallest of the city mountains and has a nice park.  At the top is a view of the city.  We had a soda on top and walked back down.  One of my tasks this day was to purchase a bag that could be used to take back some of the stuff that we accumulated and also to allow us to leave things in Santiago when we went to Easter Island.  I found one after much looking and then, of course, found hundreds.  It seems that in Chile a business specializes in items and many selling the same thing are located around each other.  Accidently we found the street that was selling cheap luggage.  I must have walked a dozen others before this and we found the street on our way to Santa Lucia.  Finishing Santa Lucia, we walked south to the President’s House  which is called Placio de la Moneda.  It is also a white colored house but is not so well guarded and isolated as the White House.  Lots of walking in the city and taking in the sights.  One of the locations of interest was in the Plaza where a large pavilion was filled with people playing chess.  I never did work up the courage to be beaten by some of the old boys playing there.  Maybe another time.

17  Feb 02    Today we walked south for 8 blocks and caught the Metro, the local subway, out 4 stops to the location where we could walk to Cerro San Cristobal.  This is another of the mountain parks in the city and the largest of the two we were to visit.   San Cristobal is the home of the city zoo, botanical garden, Catholic church, huge Madonna shrine, tram and aerial gondola.  We spent the entire day here wandering the mountain seeing the sights.  The view here is the best because the location gives one a view of the entire city as it spreads out to the mountains beyond.  Pope John Paul II came here in 1984 and talked to the people at this spot.   One of the buildings was a center for indian crafts.  That place is somewhat better off for our visit. 

Jerry walked on back to the hotel and I was dawdling along behind.  On the corner of the street where the hotel is located is a small mercado selling ice cream and soda.  As I came to the door, I recognized the face.  Can not be.  It is Jim Meyer.  He is from Highland High School and retired this year.  He and wife and daughter are traveling in Chile and staying at the Europa.  They were just going back to the hotel and like me had stopped for water.  Jim was one of the first teachers in the Rivers Project and has been at Most Clean Water Celebrations since the event began.  WHO WOULD BELIEVE that paths like this could possibly cross.

18 Feb 02   We arranged today for a tour out to Argentina to drive and hike in to see Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South America, and the highest location on Earth outside the Himalayas.  We just had to see that.  The drive took all day.  We had lunch at the trailhead leading up to the mountain.  This is the location of the trail head that most take when they are climbing the mountain.  We hiked in about an hour to the best spot for taking pictures.  Another four hours would have gotten us to the first base camp for the climb.   The road up to the trail crosses out of Chile and into Argentina.  We had our passports stamped four times during this day. Mine is filling up with Argentina and Chile stamps.

The road up is incredible.  Three huge tunnels were built to take traffic through rather than over the mountain.  The switchbacks on one section of the trail are incredible.  That section has 39 switchbacks in a row.  On top you can see the trucks appearing and then disappearing as they thread their way down the highway.  MUST be nervous drivers.  We were nervous passengers.  On the way up we stopped at the site of the first battle for Chilean independence,  Chacabuco.  Here the Chilean troops under O’ Higgins were joined by those of San Martin and they beat the Spanish here for the first time.  San Martin had brought his troops over the Andes and surprised the Spanish who were not expecting the numbers of opposition.   On our way back down we stopped at Portillo Ski Resort.  No snow now but it is a world class resort during there winter, attracting many of skiing’s best.  Many world class skiers come here when it is summer in the Northern latitudes. 

19 Feb 02  Departed for Isle de Pasqua or Easter Island.  We left at 10 AM and flew for about 5 hours.  Easter Island is 2300 miles out in the middle of the Pacific.  There was serious applause when the wheels touched down on this huge runway.  NASA had made this landing possible because they had come down here to create an emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle.  A small set of buildings still is maintained and is visited regularly by NASA employees.  LUCKY them.   I am not sure what had happend to us during the flight over but both of us were very tired.  We arrived in Hanga Roa, the only city on the Island, during the heat of the day.  This Island closes during that hot part but we wandered until siesta caught up and we returned to the Hotel Orongo, our home for four nights.  Another of our lucky events occured next.  We stopped at a local cafe for dinner about 9 PM and started a conversation with a Swedish couple, Jannette and Henrik.  They suggested an all day tour in the morning to see many of the Island sights.  We said that we would see and went up to the tour office to check on things.  We reserved the tour and made our way to a local Mercado to purchase lunch materials and water for the next day.  Sleep came easily.

20 Feb 02  Just another day in Easter Island and a continuous parade of Moai.  The Moai are the giant statues that are found all across the island and have made it famous.  We probably saw over a hundred.  Many were fallen and some are restored to stand on the platforms with their backs to the sea.  Many more were fallen and even broken.  The missionaries came in and pushed over the last standing moais but earlier the tribes of the island had been in war and when a battle was won the moais of the losers were pushed over by the winning warriors.  Earth quakes and Tsunamis also took a toll.  We visited the location where Thor Heyerdahl, of Kon-Tiki fame, restored the first.  We saw where most of the Moai were hewn from the lava rock.  We saw the largest which was 20 meters long and still in the quarry.  Most of the big ones standing were from 10 – 12 meters tall.  Some of them  weigh over 60 tons.  One is in awe that a culture without metal tools, with few trees, and with few people could move such huge objects.   Each Moai is distinct yet in a very similar pattern.  Only one that we saw had feet or legs.  Each was built to set on a Ahu or platform made of hewn rocks that were fitted with a slight incline landward.  The Ahu also became the burial site for important people.  Later Moai were fitted with a top knot made of a red lava rock.  These are called pukao and represent the male hair style common among the ranking members of the clan.  These Pukao have been restored to some of the Moai but most are missing.  A quarry for those is found some way from the Moai quarry.  In another location can be found large quantities of obsidian.  This hard rock was used for weapons and tools.

Two of the old craters on the Island hold water and there can be found growing large mats of reeds.  It has been suggested that these came from rafts similar to the Kon-Tiki.  The reeds are used ceremonially for many things and also provide one of the small boat like structures used by the islanders.  We visited one of the swimming beaches of the island.  Actually there are only two good ones and lots of rocky shores on all other places.  The island is basically rocky shored.  Even in Hanga Roa, the ships must anchor out in the ocean and transfer materials by small barges that can navigate to the poor harbor found there.  During some of the weather landing on the island is almost impossible at most points.   Our guide, the lovely Elena, took us to a place the group from Tahiti who colonized the island first landed about 450 AD.  The chief, Hotu Matua, sent seven warriors to explore for a new land.  They landed here, as did a French explorer, La Perouse.  In a shelter on the beach is a ring of rocks about 5 meters across.  In the center is a huge, very smooth rock, about a meter across.  It has been here forever and is called the “Navel of the World”.  When Ilena placed a compass on the rock and moved it around, the rock caused the compass to go crazy and loose its magnetic direction.  Over all this time the rock has stayed on this spot.  The British must not have been here or it would have been relocated in the British Museum.  NICE ROCK

After Hotu Matua’s young warriors came and found the island, they came back and brought more people to the Island.  They came to Anakena Beach and Hotu Matua became the king of the island and his son was born on the beach.  People came and continued to settle.  But there were factions and continuous wars over the years.  Still today the island is divided into clans or families.  The war today is carried out in a better manner and the winner crowns a girl as queen of the island for a year.  We came during the last week of that competition-celebration.

At Anakena, the swimming beach, we found time to take pictures of more moai and I met a real Easter Island beauty.  Her name was Ester and she ran a stand at the beach selling drinks, fruit and island food.  Ester was a real Polynesian lady and her clothing ran to rather large -- like Bloody Mary of South Pacific. She asked me if I was married.  NO, I was not.  I think that we are promisedJ

At 8 PM the parade of the Tapati Rapa Nui began.  For the previous  ten days competitions had been occurring that included carving, art, swimming and such.  Any family can select a young woman for the Queen competition but usually only a couple do so.  The entire family of the girl takes part and the more people involved the more points one can accumulate.  We had two girls competing, Carmen and JoAnna.   Both were lovely by any standard but JoAnna was beautiful.  Yet with the competition, Carmen was way ahead.  The parade floats were the final representation of all the efforts.  All the wooden artifacts were made for this event and were on display.  The chief carver must make a huge Moai in less than two hours and received points for the effort. Other events garnered points for the queen candidates.  The points were given for a community effort rather than given for the queen effort.   The entire event came about because some young people in the 60s could see the Rapa Nui culture disappearing and wanted to start this event to capture some of their missing culture.  It has been working and they are beginning to offer a Rapa Nui language immersion program for k-3 elementary.  Slowly Rapa Nui is becoming a real language again.  We also met an American couple who had spent 20 years working to that effect.

The parade lasted over an hour and culminated at the soccer field with dance competition between the two groups.  Each group had a young set of dancers, a young woman set and an old woman’s set.  In all they performed for over 30 minutes.  Each member was dressed in traditional garb.  The women had skirts made from bird feathers with coconut hull breast cups.  The ages ranged from 3 to 53 and they all danced.  One group had men involved but the other did not.   The music was Polynesian with drums, rhythm sticks, conch shells, ukelele and such.  The men and women in the festival were decorated with red or white body paint with black designs over all this.  Also feathers, palm leaves, tapa cloth added to the design.  The men all were mostly naked except for a small cup like g-string to cover the essentials. The dancing and song went into the early morning as did the partying.

21 Feb 02   We slept in today and walked around the city exploring more.  We walked down to the center of the city and up to the Local Catholic church and nearby Artisan Mall.  The church is filled with hand carved statuary of the saints and of Jesus and Mary but they are all with Polynesian facial features.  The Mall is filled with carvings, tshirts and such.  I bought a shirt and a Tapa cloth with drawings.    Then we hiked along the coast to the location of another Aku and to the site for this evenings crowning of the winning Queen.  The stage for the event was a reconstructed boat house structure.  This is used other times for folklorical presentations.  At the furthest point of our walk is located the Island Museum and we visited that.  Here also is the only Moai with eyes.  Some say that all moai had eyes and that the eye sockets were filled with white coral with a rock pupil.  Only one of these has been found so a controversy is still going because most moai do not have the coral eyes.

A second important event happened to Jerry this day.  We visited cafe for lunch and Jerry plopped down on one of the plastic chairs as comfortable as can be.  After we ate, he moved to the chair around to get comfortable as we were resting from the walk and talking to an English fellow.  He sat down and shuttled in the chair to make it more comfortable as we talked.  The Englishman was commenting on how obese we Americans had become.   A leg of the chair exploded out and Jerry settled flat on his back on the floor. OUCH

TWO DOWN!  And the table was drawn down and so were all the dishes on the table.  Not a one escaped.  Every glass, every cup, every bottle, every plate, all demolised in this one graceful move.  Jerry unharmed scrambled to his feet swearing never to set in a plastic chair again.

The evening celebration concluded with the crowning of Carmen I as Queen.  Before the coronation, each group performed more traditional singing and dancing and music.  The event took almost two hours.

22 Feb 02  We had arranged with Janette and Henrick to go with them in four-wheeled drive vehicle to explore the rest of the Island.  The vehicle we rented was made in Russia and is an example of why we won the cold war.  It over heated, had poor brakes and would eventually break down as we headed up to the highest spot on the island.  We never made that high spot but we did make it back to town from half way up the highest spot on the island. First we drove up to Orongo Ceremonial village located high on the cliffs on southwestern end of the island.  Out in the ocean lay three small islands.  These islands used to be the homes of many sea birds but they have been all killed.  The one, the sooty tern, was the focus of the Bird Man ceremony.  Participants came to the village once a year and climbed down the 100 foot cliffs, swam to the islands, found the first sooty tern egg and swam back with it to be crowned the year’s BIRD MAN, and receive a special status all year.  This drove the tern to extinction on the islands.  The village has many restored houses, a equinox site, many petroglyphs and incredible views.  It is a national park.

We visited a number of caves this day but could not enter as we had forgotten flashlights.  Each cave was used in a ceremony and are lava tubes that mostly end in an opening over the ocean.   We ate lobster dinner at the hotel.  The lobsters were all fresh from the sea that day.  Then we went down to the location of the Moai with the coral eyes because this is the ceremonial center of Rapa Nui and the site of other coronations.  The large war canoe that had been in the parade filled the center of the bowl like arena.  We sat on the grass as the rhythm sticks and stone clickers sounded out a beat and the announcers gave the history of the island as it was enacted before us.  The sound of the waves interspersed with the beat of rhythm sticks and then came the repetitious chanting as young warriors came forth to tell the story of  how Hotu Matua came to the Island.  The area was lighted by hundreds of torches and fires.  Some flood lights were used but only for back lighting the statues and to focus on the coronation events.  The entire event culminated with Queen Carmen I being placed on a paloquin, carried by six warrior attendants. They carried her to the area beside the boat and her father gave her the crown to wear for this year.  The ceremony concluded with a performance of about a dozen men twirling double torches.  The participants of the ceremony could be heard drumming and singing long after we returned to the hotel.  Each Feb people of Rapa Nui ancestory journey back to the home Island to participate in the Festival.  It is their home coming and they celebrate with family and friends the recreation of these historical events and to take part in the competition.  It is a happy time and we are so pleased to have been able to share it with them.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel after the celebration, Bob plopped down on the bed a bit harder than usual.  The slats burst out from the bed in an alarming clatter.  NOT to Bob but very much so to Jerry.  He wanted the most for the bed to fall in but that did not happen.  One bed falling in must be worth two chairs?  

23 Feb 02   We left Rapa Nui, Easter Island at 2:30 PM and arrived in Santiago at 10 PM.  Carlos, our taxi driver was waiting and took us to the hotel. 

24 Feb 02  We spent two hours typing this last report and our backs hurt.  We have confirmed our reservations and we depart on 25 Feb at 11 PM.  We arrive in Miami on the 26^th and will be home before supper.   IT HAS BEEN GREAT exploring this part of the world