Wait! There Are No Checks on This Checklist!

4/14/10: Santiago, Chile

Things we didn’t bother to do before heading out to catch our 10:15 bus to Mendoza this morning:

1. Check to make sure we knew where the bus station was.
2. Print out our tickets that we had bought online from Andesmar five days earlier.

Excuses for not bothering to do those things which we probably should have done:

1. We had already been to the bus station when we got into Santiago from Bariloche.
2. Our hostel didn’t have a printer, and we figured the Andesmar office could easily print out our tickets for us if we gave them our reservation information.
3. We got back a bit late from Easter Island.
4. We were tired.

You know you’re in a pretty pathetic situation when the number of excuses you have for not doing things outnumbers the actual things you’re making the excuses for.

But! At least we did get up on time to eat our delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, fruit, and Vegemite on toast (something I am starting to love). Which means we left on time for our bus, which means we got to the bus station about forty-five minutes early. And that’s when the silent panicking (me) and running around (Kevin) ensued. We looked in vain for about five minutes for our blue Andesmar bus – but the only buses around seemed to be bright green ones, and none of them were headed to Mendoza. We stopped a guy in the bus station and asked if we were at the right bus station. It turns out we weren’t. We asked him where the bus station we were supposed to be at was. He pointed to his right and said something in really fast Spanish that we took to mean, “It’s that way, you fools.” We thanked him and started powerwalking in that direction. Belatedly I realized that we should have asked him if it the bus station was nearby (something we actually know how to say in Spanish!) or if we would have to take the metro. I mentioned this to Kevin, who replied that it didn’t matter because we only had enough money for one of us to ride on the metro anyway. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I was thinking if it came to it, I’d ride the metro and Kevin would run. Because I have shorter legs.

Luckily for us, the bus station with the international buses was right next door to the bus station we had mistakenly gone to. We found it by following a bunch of people with roller suitcases who were walking underneath a sign that said “bus station this way.” That’s when my silent panicking finally stopped.

We found the Andesmar ticketing window with no problem and explained to them that we had already bought our tickets but couldn’t print them out because we didn’t have a printer. We figured it would be easy enough for them to just print out the tickets for us, seeing as they do that all the time at the TICKET COUNTER. But no such luck. It seems that fate generally does not reward laziness or procrastination or making assumptions about bus companies in Argentina. The ticketing guy pointed us over to an internet cafe, and we rushed over to get our tickets printed. At this point we only had 500 pesos left because we had been playing the “get rid of all of this country’s currency before we cross the border” game. Normally it’s a game I really enjoy playing but at this particular point in time I was cursing the fact that we had played it too well. “How many pages can we afford to print out?” I asked Kevin nervously. “Three, but I think we only need to print two.” It turns out the tickets didn’t actually fit onto two pages, but the Andesmar people didn’t seem to be as picky about that as they are about printing out online tickets. Yeah, I’m still a bit annoyed.

A few minutes later our bus pulled up and we got on. I’d like to say that our victory in overcoming the consequences of our own stupidity smelled so sweet, but that would be a lie. It actually smelled like sweaty people.
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Picture of the Day: It was another NPD (No Picture Day), so please enjoy this picture from Torres Del Paine.

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Some Moai and a Sunset…Two Bits

4/12/10: Easter Island

We came to Easter Island with what we thought was a pretty large stash of food: 16 chewy chocolate chip granola bars, six chocolate chip cereal bars, six fruit and yogurt cereal bars, one package of spaghetti, two packages of spaghetti sauce, three cans of tuna, six apples, three pears, three peaches and one large box of instant oatmeal. It ended up that this only fed us for five breakfasts, one and a half lunches and two dinners. In hindsight, we really should have just brought over the entire Santa Isabel grocery store, but I suppose we wouldn’t have been able to squeeze it under the seat in front of us on the plane.

On the island itself, the prices at the grocery stores are extortionist, so for the last few days we’ve eaten out at either Cafe Hitu (great “french fries Hitu”) or Taku Vave (really good fish). Not that the restaurants aren’t extortionist as well, but at least eating out means you don’t have to do your own dishes. Today was our last full day and we visited Hitu for lunch and Taku Vave for dinner. The really sweet owner of Taku Vave gave us the gift of a shell necklace for “coming so much” and the really nice cook at Cafe Hitu nearly gave us both heart attacks with his food. It was great.

Since we had spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon indoors, taking care of some administrative things – writing, napping, reading, sitting – we decided that we’d go out to take advantage of our last day and catch an Easter Island sunset.

Looks like we weren't the only ones with this idea.

Or were we?

It’s funny, everyone was there with their big cameras to get pictures of the sunset, but let’s be honest here – if you’re not actually in the picture yourself, everyone’s pictures are the same. I mean, we all flatter ourselves that the picture we took ourselves are “better,” (and of course mine are the best) but really, they all end up looking pretty similar. Same sunset, same moai silhouettes, same clouds. I suppose this vindicates my mom for all those years of telling me, “Get IN the picture. How else will you know you were there?” How else will you know indeed? Quite the philosophical question.

Now that we’ve finished going over the events of the day, there are 2.1 other things I’d like to cover in this post: the absence of smooth transition sentences, plastic bags and gas burners.

Absence of smooth transition sentences:
Please see the sentences two sentences prior. Done.

Plastic bags:
When we first started this trip, we found we never seemed to have enough plastic bags, so we started to hoard them. Back then, plastic bags were like gold, only they were worth a lot more than they weigh. (Think on that for a minute.) We would save the ones we got when we shopped at grocery stores and we would lament the loss of a particularly good one if it wore out or if one of us accidentally poked a hole in it. Kevin even got to the point where he started designating particular bags for particular items and would look put out if I handed him “the wrong plastic bag.” As in, “Where’s the computer bag? That’s not the computer bag – that’s the sandals bag! Hey, hey, don’t put the computer in there!” I suppose the man has a point. Who wants to put their neoprene-encased computer in a plastic bag that has been used to hold sandals? Crazy people, that’s who!

As you may be able to tell, the entire plastic bag situation had gotten of hand. Our stash of plastic bags had grown to its limit. Every time I stuck my hand in the big pack to look for a clean shirt, I’d end up fishing out three empty plastic bags first. So I finally decided to do something about it. I gathered up and went through all of our plastic bags one by one, threw away the flimsy ones and neatly folded up the rest and put them in – a plastic bag. And no, the irony does not escape me.

Our bag of bags.

Gas burners:

In Charlotte we had gas burners, but they were the self-lighting kind. I really took that for granted before but now that we’ve been on the road for seven months, I can really see the genius in it. For us, lighting the gas stove is an adventure each time, one that often ends with a foot-hop/flinched hand/shout of “ow!” But I think I’ve learned the trick to it, and it is this: NO FEAR. I’ve gotten to the point where I can light one without looking like I’m trying to feed a crocodile, but Kevin is still a bit jumpy, so I offer to light the stove whenever we need to use one. Kevin watched me light one this morning in a relatively calm manner and said, “How come whenever I light it it’s like a fireball explosion?” Just remember, everyone: NO FEAR. The stove can smell it.
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Puzzles for Postcards

Rhyme Time! A No Hurry Curry first – solve two of the following three quadruple rhymes!

Insist upon an impromptu gymnastics maneuver where one balances on their palms
Fill out in an orderly manner a piece of paper to illegally help you ace your exam
Chew on an overly luminescent bulb that shines while a baby is sleeping

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Picture of the Day: Shanghai is only 8,200 nautical miles away.

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Our Very First Easter JPEG Hunt

4/11/10: Easter Island

The travel gods have really smiled on us during our time here on Easter Island, because for the fourth day in a row we woke up to nothing but gorgeous blue skies, warm weather and of course, another Reds victory! So for the fourth day in a row, we set out after breakfast to take advantage of the perfect weather. Today’s quest:

“The second beach is a gem so hidden, it doesn’t even have a name. Found along the southern shore of the island near Ahu Vaihu (along the road from Hanga Roa to Ahu Akahanga), this beautiful and desolate beach is much larger than that at Anakena and is surrounded by breathtaking cliffs.”

If it says so on WikiTravel, it’s gotta be true. We hitched a ride (don’t worry – it was from our roommate, not an ax murderer) out past Ahu Vaihu and began the hunt. To elicit a few groans from the audience, I shall call this our “Easter JPEG Hunt” because JPEG rhymes with egg and our goal was to take pictures at the beach and then convert them into JPEGs on the computer.

This hunt got me reminiscing about my days searching for plastic Easter eggs both at our house and Grandma and Grandpa’s. Eggs were filled with one of three things: candy, coins or dollar bills. At home the eggs were color-coded (dark colors for me, light colors for my brother) so that Steve and I each received an equal amount of both eggs and money. Whenever we’d find an egg, we’d shake it hoping for no sound because that was one of the one or two eggs with the big bills (you know, the Washingtons). However, along the way we’d also find the coins and M&Ms, which were decent prizes in themselves.

Today though, we were hunting for a beach (remember, to get our JPEGs), but were also enjoying the small prizes that we found along the way:

A horse skull chewing on a rock.

A pukao lying by itself.

I specifically told Zhou to take this picture above the waist so I look intimidating, but now I just look constipated.

A religious rock thing.

A hot dog.

Ok, we brought this with us for lunch. We have not yet stooped to eating hot dogs we find on the ground.

A big wave that scared little Zhou.

Two big waves that were scared by a bigger Kevin.

Some pretty flowers.

A flightless bird.

We're pretty sure that this bird had been given up by scientists as extinct until we saw it waddling in the path in front of us. That's why we took the picture.

A moai head in the ground.

Goats who had just knocked over a bunch of moai.

When we approached these moai, a dog started barking hysterically and all the goats immediately ran off the statues and then followed the dog to safety in the fields nearby.

As you can see, we found lots of ‘C’ eggs (candy/coin eggs). The one thing missing? The beach! (Son of a beach!) We searched the entire coastline from east of Ahu Vaihu to the southwest corner of the island and never saw one grain of sand. (Aren’t you proud though? In the past we would often search inland as well, but we’ve learned that beaches are usually on the coast so we saved ourselves valuable time by cutting out the middle-land.)

To the jokester who wrote that tidbit in the WikiTravel article: you got us. Your hoax made us look stupid. We walked some absolutely stunning coastline for over three hours under clear blue skies while you sat in your chair at home laughing at us. We had an amazing afternoon taking in the sights and smells of the most remote island in the world while you emailed your friends about your amazing prank. Are you happy now?

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Pictures of the Day: Now you see Zhou.

Now you don’t.

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Another Scooter-rific Day

4/10/10: Easter Island

Z: I think I’ll write today’s post about how I kept referring to our scooter as “Scooter Patooter.”
K: Oh god.
Z: Do you think we’ll lose readership because of it?
K: DON’T DO IT.

Sigh. Kevin puts such a damper on my great ideas. Well then, I’ll leave out the scooter patooter part then and just post a bunch of pictures instead! You guys are always distracted by pictures, aren’t you?

Kevin as the third moai.

You can’t see it, but here’s what’s happening in this picture: I am sternly looking down in disapproval at Kevin who has gone out on a rocky ledge while the tide is coming in and then a particularly large wave splashes him so he loses his balance and cuts a large gash in his foot which then drips blood on his flip flop for the rest of the day. I wanted to put that entire sentence as the caption, but I thought I might lose your interest.

After this incident we (and by WE I mean I) decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea (for Kevin) to climb on any more rocks in the ocean. We would just climb into small, dark caves instead. Without any sort of flashlight or torch or anything. (Good idea us!) The caves were fun for Kevin and a bit scary for me. Collapsing caves are included on my long list of semi-irrational fears (which include falling out of the sky, bridges collapsing when we ride over them, underwater tunnels collapsing when we ride through them, sidewalk grates collapsing as I walk over them, things in general collapsing, funiculars (collapsing), the wind blowing me over the side of a cliff, other people’s dryer lint, etc.). Mostly I stood in the entrances shouting at Kevin to “BE CAREFUL!” as he walked around and yelled back, “Come here! It’s really cool!” Don’t worry, I wasn’t fooled by this statement. I stayed firmly in the safety of the entrances.

Kevin in a cave. Dark, dark cave. I don't know why he still had his sunglasses on.

After exploring the caves we drove along the extremely bumpy roads (this is where car > scooter) and eventually found ourselves at Ahu Akivi.

These seven moai are the only ones that face the coast (as opposed to inland) and are supposed to represent the seven explorers who were the first to come out to the island and explore it. So says the information board.

Can you find a Zhou?

After we left Ahu Akivi we went over to Puna Pau, which is where they carved the big red hat thingies, called pukao (archaeologists think they might represent the topknot hairdos or headdresses the chiefs used to wear). At the site they had a diagram of two different ways they think they might have put these hats on the moai.

1. They erect the moai at the designated site and then make an incline leading up to the moai using rocks. Then they roll the pukao up to the top of the moai and balance it on the head.
2. They attach the pukao to the moai with ropes before the moai is erected and then erect the moai together with pukao using some system of ropes and some other things (maybe including wooden planks) that I couldn’t distinguish in the diagram.

Either way, it is completely and utterly mind-boggling. And you know what else is mind-boggling? That these pukao, which could weigh up to 10 tons – were all mined at this single site and then transported to various places around the island! Is this not crazy?

After we were done visiting the west side of the island, we played the game “Let’s Go Back to Our Favorite Spots and Take Some More Pictures There!” That’s always a fun game.

First stop: Rano Kau. Oh, you knew that? How did you know?

Second stop: Ahu Tongariki. Oh, you knew that one too?

I think we should do ads for Scrabble.

Like Russian dolls. Only a million times heavier. And not hollow. So not like Russian dolls at all.

Yet another perfectly beautiful (and scooter-ful) day on Easter Island.
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Ohio Picture: Thanks gorillapod! O I I I O forever!

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Picture of the Day: He’s got a penchant for jumping.

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Despite What You Think, It’s Not Easy to Make My Top Three

4/9/10: Easter Island

I casually asked Zhou last night where the day ranked in the grand scheme of our trip. Top 3? Top 5? Top 10? After some thought, she replied that it was in the Top 5.

What? That’s a travesty! Yesterday was without a doubt one of the best three days on the trip. We were scootering around Easter Island visiting gigantic ancient rock statues that are so mysterious that to this day no one has figured out how they were transported around the island and erected.

Filling out the rest of my top three, in chronological order:

1. The Devil’s Pool in Zambia
2. The Annapurna Circuit in Nepal
3. Halong Bay in Vietnam
4. Seeing the pandas in China
5. Skydiving in New Zealand
6. Hiking the Perito Moreno in Argentina

As you can see, that’s a few more than three. We actually had a lengthy philosophical conversation about this, during which I concluded that if someone asked me “Was doing [x] in your top three experiences on your trip?” I would have to answer yes. However, if I actually had to pick a top three, I couldn’t do it.

The point of this story is that yesterday was so incredible that I stubbornly insisted to Zhou that I was going to write today’s post about it. Then today happened.

Zhou and I both remember our first encounter with Easter Island for two different reasons, but we both remember one key thing: the moai statues. Today we saw the other, less famous side of the island: Rano Kau and Orongo.

Rano Kau is an extinct volcano just a couple hour walk from our hostel in Hanga Roa. At the top is the most unbelievably beautiful crater. It is so nice that it appears as if some tourist agency ripped off the back wall of it in order to give visitors a beautiful view of the ocean. With all due respect to Ohio Stadium, this has quickly become my favorite horseshoe-shaped thing in the world.

Be careful you don't fall off the ledge!

But jumping over the crater is just fine.

On one edge of the crater is the ancient stone village of Orongo. The history behind this area is quite interesting (especially the incredibly strange Birdman competion), but again it’s the views that made the place so incredible. I had always thought that Easter Island was all by itself in the middle of the South Pacific, but there are actually two small islets nearby.

I’m pretty sure my jaw was agape the entire afternoon, and these views were reason alone to come to Easter Island. Someone could throw all the moai into the ocean and I’d fly out just to spend my days sitting at the crater’s edge. (For those of you reading who can actually lift and throw multi-ton rocks, please don’t – I was just saying it for effect. However, apparently there is one underwater moai already.)

To end this post, I know we throw a lot of pictures of sunsets at you, but this is just another of the million reasons to come visit Easter Island.

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Picture of the Day: Hurry up and get here before May 1, because they’re about to increase the park prices here sixfold (from $10 to $60)! No I don’t know how to read Spanish, but yes, I do know how to stand next to people who read Spanish.

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