Rapa Nui big heads

Easter Island is an enigma, somewhat of a mystery to historians and archeologists alike.  The experts think it was populated for around 5-8 hundred years before it was rediscovered in the 1700's.  By then the civilisation who had sailed almost 4000 k's in little canoe's from Tahiti to populate the island had all but disappeared leaving only the huge stone Maoi as testament to what had been.  But even the Maoi had all been toppled over, all but destroyed.

Now some of the Maoi have been restored to their original glory, others, all over the island, lay scattered over the cliff sides where they once stood watch over the people.  The big heads are huge, and like ancient pyramids all over the world, Stonehenge and  Machu Picchu you look at these big heads and think ,'How the hell did they do that?'

Where's Wally.

Remember the oracles?

Michael says 'pfft, my head's bigger than this.'

Looking at the giant stone faces with their blank stares, it kind of reminded me of the oracles in The Never Ending Stories.  I kept expecting them to talk to me or start crumbling at I stood there watching them.

The island itself is not so big.  It took us about half an hour to drive end to end.  On the first day we thought hiring scooters would be fun.  It was fun until we hit the first of many long gravel tracks, all rugged and bumpy.  I was wishing big time for a sports bra.  Lucky I don't have big boobies or I would have ended up with black eyes.  So the next couple of days we hired a little 4wd to get around.

As well as the big heads there was Orongo which is restored houses that sit on the edge of a huge crater.  There were some nice beaches and lots of caves sprinkled along the coast.  We crawled into one where the opening was only about a metre square and crawled and walked through about 100 metres to come out in the side of the cliff overlooking the water smashing onto the rocks.  Pretty cool.  I was all like, 'Hey check this out.  Be careful it's slippery.'  Great advice that I was giving and not actually doing because two steps later I was flat on my arse.

Pots and pans and protests

Santiago is a big city.  You can see the cloud of smog for an hour before you get there.  But it is a pretty cool city.  We found the central mercado which is a big seafood market.  As well as the seafood stalls there are also a heap of restaurants and dudes hanging out the front trying to drag you into theirs.  We found one with the most amazing and huge paella.  Michael ordered one for himself, not realising it's for 2 people, but really it could have fed 4.  From Santiago we've been to Valparaiso, Santa Cruz and Valle Nevado.

I don't know whether it's made news at home, but there have been some pretty big protests going on in Santiago.  Students protesting for free education.  A good cause but it's been getting somewhat out of control.  We've seen lots of police and armoured vehicles around and one big green robo-cop dude.  As well as the protests in the day there has been night protests which involves anyone who cares opening their window at 9pm and banging pots and pans as loud as they can for an hour.  It's pretty noisy when you're staying in the University district, that's for sure.  We also discovered that tear gas is not fun and even after lingering in the air for hours still bloody stings.

In Valle Nevado the skiing was great.  There are long wide runs, no queues for the lifts, lots of snow and sunshine and it's cheap as compared to Aussie ski prices.  I spent the whole day onthe slopes while Micheal checked out the resort and spent a bit much time sitting in the sunshine, getting a nice red tan to one side of his face :)

We spent a few days in Valparaiso which is a cool seaside town.  It's a fairly big town with lots of old buildings, some renovated and looking stunning, others left with a dilapidated charm.  One cool thing about this town it is built into some steep cliffs, so these big old mansion houses are hanging off the sides of ledges and there are 'hill elevators' sporadically placed about the town to save you walking up the long windy roads.  The hill elevators are basically little trams on really really steep tracks going up and down some of the steeper hills.

About an hour south of Santiago is Santa Cruz, a little town that reminded me a little of walking around the back streets of Maffra.  Nice, but not much to do except for one pretty cool museum and the fact it is the centre of one of Chile's best wine regions.  However the wine tours are ridiculously prices - $170 per person for 3 wineries and lunch!!  That's a lot of money for a wine tour, but that's was we were there to do, so we forked out the cash and did the tour.  And it was good - maybe not $170 good.  But we had a fun day, tested out a few wines, visited some really nice wineries, the guided tours of the wineries were great and lunch wasn't bad either.

So next off we fly out to Rapa Nui to go check out the big heads, can't wait!!