On monday morning we got collected from the hostel and brought to the airport for our long awaited trip to Easter Island. The flight took 6 hours in total but it was a nice flight with some movies enroute to keep us entertained. When we got off the plane we were like two kids we were just excited to finally be on the island. We were met at the airport by Renee from our hostel -who welcomed us with a traditional flower necklace. He collected us along with another traveller called Kit and gave us a quick drive through of the main town area before bringing us back to the hostel. The main town of Easter Island is quite small you wouldn't really be able to get lost, it's a simple few streets intertwined around each other. The island while small would be too big to walk but can easily be navigated by bike or car. We spent our first afternoon just walking the main town area to get our bearings. It has a feel of a lovely small town where you see the same people every day and everybody says hello and stops for a chat. It had a lovely warm vibe to it, we pretty much fell in love straight away. One of the features of Easter Island is the dogs. Stray dogs are everywhere on the island, you might have one dog walking by you at any given point; he or she will decide to stick with you and hey presto you have a little compadre for the day. Some times you start of with one and end up with five or six dogs just trotting behind you. They stop when you stop and walk when you walk. A nightmare if your not a dog person but otherwise it's quite cute!Any that followed us got a name for the day and usually some of our lunch :) We spent our first evening sitting by the bay enjoying the sunset- of course not a camera between us!! Near to the bay there is a maoi statue standing proud as if in welcome to the bay, he was the first maoi of our trip and he was amazing.

We had signed up to a day tour on our first full day on E.I, our guide came to pick us up after our breakfast and we set off from the hostel for about 10am joined by Kit and Alex. Our first stop on our tour was where our guide told us of the customs the statues stood for. Easter Island had two main classes at the time of maoi statue production; Long ears and Short ears. The long eared tribe were the prestigious tribes of the island while the short eared tribes were seen as the manual workers. The long eared tribes would take short ears as the equivilant of slaves or servants. The long ears lived in small boat houses to protect them from the elements while the short ears lived in caves nearby. We were shown one of the caves it hard to think of a family of five or so living in on of these spaces but then they literally only slept inside all other daily activities took place outside. When a member of a long eared tribe died if the family wanted to camemorate him (it seems it was a male only club; theres only one female statue on the whole island) they would travel to one particular spot - the only place on the island where maoi statues could be bought from (bartered or some form of agreement reached where one statue would be equal to ). Families would make their way to Rano Raraku this nowday showroom of maoi statues and pick the one they like the most. It's thought that while one of the short ear tribes would have been responsible for carving the statue another would be responsible for moving it from the quarry to its resting place. All over the island you find statues mid way to what must have been a resting place it's kind of eary to see these big giants just left in the middle of a field or at the side of the road. If while on route the statue broke it would be left where it fell and a new statue would have to be bartered for. There were many broken statues along the route.

From here it was back onto the bus to the first of the national parks on the island- Rano Raraku. Even travelling to this place was amazing you'd be driving along when some horses or cows would meander out of nowhere onto the road. Everything roams freely here; well it's not really as if they have anywhere to go. The mountain the quarry is found in was mystical; it's the only place on the island where maoi statues could be bought from. It's a big parkland with maoi statues dotted everywhere; the heads alone are huge when you consider that the bodies are under the soil it really makes you wonder to their full size. There's a lot of discussion on the island as to what might be best to do by way of preserving the statues, the elements are taking their tole on the maoi faces the locals are in discussion about possibly creating a casing for some of them. Who knows how this will pan out, it would definitely change the feeling of the island; at the moment there's only one thing on the island that your allowed to touch by way of the statues it's a magnetic meteorite stone that was brought to the island by one of the first travellers to arrive on the island. The stone is known as the belly button of the world and it's said that if you place your hands on it you can fell the energy pulse from it. All I can offer is that it felt warm ! We took a visit to a volcano crater while at this park. It wasnt much of a hill but the sun was out which made the walk a bit sticky. The crater of this extinct volcano is where a yearly triathalon is held, our guide was telling us about it and I have to say I think there mad!

Our next stop after the national park was the spot where the iconic pictures come from, the row of 15 maoi linded up with the sea in the background. Only one of the 15 still have their hat (which represents there hair) as there was a tsunami some years ago that knocked all the statues over and knocked some of the hats to the other side of the green were they're located. Only one remainded in good enough condition to put back on the statue when they were all put upright again after the storm. We saw loads of hieroglyphs of turtles and birdmen which is one of the sysmbols mostly widely recognised on Easter Island.

Day two -we took a walk with Alex and Abby from our guesthouse up the side of a volcano Orongo national park. It was a pretty epic sight from the top of the crater, we had picked up a dog for our mornings travel - we called hm Bruce. Not the cleverest dog he went out of his way to bark at all other dogs, cows and horses and would then run and hide at our legs if any of the other animals decided to fight back (wus!). Later he was joined by Socks for some company, a black dog with white feets - god were so inventive!!

That evening we took a walk through the town and headed for the post office to get the proper Easter Island stamp in our passport. Alex had come with us and from there our plan had been to go and see some statues near the end of the village but instead we opted for icecream. Alex called me over to see something in the water and I was saying " oh amazing look at the fish"! He looked at me with an odd look that told me I had missed something. I looked again and there they were TURTLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One month in the jungle specifically hoping to see these badboys, three months later BOOM there they were. Two little fellas and the babies. Not at all what we were expecting. I called Rob over and he did the exact same thing "oh look at the fish" Alex was just laughing at the two of us. Well at least were well matched! We must have sat there for ages and took tonnes of photos of Bernie and Beatrice (these were the names I finally came to after much vitto-ing from Rob). Easter Island just kept giving us memory after memory. We only left when it got dark and the turtles had left cause we didnt want to miss anything. We were so so happy wth ourselves.

Day three -we rented two bikes and headed off to see some of the other maoi statues that arent so close to the main village. There are a group of seven that face the sea the only statues on the island to face outward, all others face inwards. We also saw the only one remaining maoi that has eyes, we got some pretty good pictures of him. Rob was in heaven on his bike he used to mountain bike in Wales so he was up and down all the hills not a bother on him. A proper speedy gonzalez, me ...... well lets just say I got there in the end and I didnt fall off which was pretty amazing I thought. It was a beautiful day to take the bikes and just enjoy the island we even got a little sunburn for our troubles.

That evening we headed back to the harbour to see if we could spot the turtles again, we had our final supper with Abby and Alex as the sun set and afterwards we made our way back to the harbour and there they were. They had made there way in to get some food from the fishermen. The local fishermen had caught some yellowfin tuna and they cleaned the fish at the harbour side throwing the guts and such into the water. The turtles were basically getting dinner served up to them. We were to leave the next day and were really sad to be leaving such a beautiful spot but what a few days!! This blog cant really begin to explain just how amazing it was but the turtles just finished it off for us.

On our final morning we ran into town to buy one or two little souvenirs before we made our way to the airport. I'd been keeping an eye out for a little travel engagment ring as we'd been travelling and there on a jewellery stand on Easter Island I found the perfect one, a little wooden ring with a turtle on it :) come on it couldnt have gotten any better. That was Easter Islands last little present to us after what had been an amazing few days. It's an expensive place to get to but worth every single penny. We waved goodbye to the gang at the hostel and as we made our way to the airport we were already planning "next time we go we'll ......"

Taste sensations: tuna and cheese empanada, corn empanada, tuna cerviche (like raw!!) and little doughnut rings that tasted nothing like doughnut but we closed our eyes and pretended :)

Music: much the same as at home a little pop a little reggae.

EASTER ISLAND - SEE YOU SOON!