Easter Island afternoon and flight to Tahiti

Good morning guys, here I am in Tahiti! *wooohhooo* At the airport motel right now waiting for my next flight and watching out of the window I can see Moorea. Have high speed internet access in my room and so I should be able to finally post some pics…

But let me start with telling you the about the last hours on Easter Island. Patricia came to get me at 2 and just in time the 3 boys showed up so we headed to the caves. Patricia had told me about it and I don’t recall having read in the Lonely Planet guide about them. I only had a vague idea what to expect. We brought torches which we absolutely needed. We were in 3 different caves. I didn’t know there was a huge under-earth-world on Easter Island. In former times the natives used to hide there when enemies came to get them as slaves. The closed the entries with rocks and so they were not found.

The first cave had to openings to the ocean and the entrance was very small. we nearly had to crawl in. The second one was much smaller and used to be a funeral parlour. Outside we still saw bones but those belonged to a horse… 😀

The third cave was HUGE. We were in there about half an hour and when we came out we had to walk about 400 m (1.200 ft) back to the car. It was an absolutely amazing experience. And we had lots of fun as well. After that we came by the site with the Maoris facing the sea again and then we went to Vinapu where the altar on which the Moais have been built is built in a style similar to Macchu Picchu. Nobody knows whether this Ahu (altar) on Easter Island or Macchu Picchu was built first.

Then it was time to get back to the hotel and take a shower (jeez, we were DIRTY!) and gt the stuff ready. When I arrived at the hotel they already told me that the flight would be late. Looks like all flights yesterday were late. Met Hugh at Check-In later on as we were on the same flight to Tahiti. When we were at the gate I suddenly remembered that I hadn#t said my goodbyes to Patricia as she had said she would be on the airport. 2 Minutes later Patricia was standing in front of us and had necklaces for Hugh and me. The pendant was a shell with a feather. How she got past security I don’t know but we were happy she came! That was the second necklace I got as in the hotel they gave me one with a Moai.

Flight was uneventful, 3 hours late and so we arrived in Papeete at 2 AM in the pouring rain. It’s not really funnyto walk over to a motel which is up the hill with MANY stairs in the middle of the night, pourring rain and a suitcase which contains stuff for a month (including dive stuff).

Now I will post the pics I have promised you….

I publish this now as again I have problems with the internet connection….