Last night we had a big BBQ at our hotel - Gary, Sheree, Dan, Heather and Tim came. I prepared the salad, Tim brought the fish and Gary was the grillmaster. That worked well, only that we could have fed another 20 people or so :) Today I'm flying back to Santiago. Good-bye easter island, I had a blast! For the interested reader, I can recommend easter island if you do engage in a lot of activities and you have the chance to meet people in the place you're stayin...

This morning I took part in another dive, probably the most exciting but also frightening one I had so far. Tim (my dive buddy from Kiel), a brazilian couple, a french diver who is obviously very experienced because he has his own total pro-equipment and I go, and it's two dive-masters leading us. The boss of the diving center, a french diving veteran who used to be in the team of the great Jacques Cousteau himself, and one of his employees. We go diving to Motu...

After all the diving, snorkeling and chatting with fellow travelers, I still have 70% of easter island unexplored, but only half a day left. So I need to move faster. Could rent a car, but that would be boring and expensive, so I collect all my courage and rent a Quad, which I've never used, but people tell me it's easy. Indeed, it's just throttle and brake, so after overcoming the first bit of anxiety I'm quite comfortable with it and it's a lot of fun. Especial...

This afternoon I rent a mountain bike and made a 10-15 km tour in the west of the island. It's a rocky off-road piste and since it has rained for about 2 days it's all muddy as well, so I'm all splattered in dirt after the first hour. Fortunately, the rain finally stops and it clears up a bit, so I have a great ride along the beautiful cliffs in the west coast of easter island. Quite tired I read the A Kivi, a site of 7 Moais that are quite well preserved (see p...

This morning I set out to dive. Christian, our dive master seems to be a good guy, who takes it slow and careful and cracks a lot of jokes. We ask him to take photos for us, so for the first time I have the chance to show a few decent-quality images of my dive. Amongst our group of five divers there's one guy from Kiel, Tim, who also turns out to be a scientist (he's a biologist working in Basel on biological pest control projects). He's a really great guy and a ...