Rapa Nui, Day 4

DAY 4

We woke up in the morning to an empty house, and got our things together to walk up to Rano Kao. It was a pretty nice day, way better than the rainy storm which had continued on all of the night before, and we started out in the direction of Rano Kao. Scaling the volcano turned out to be a several hour, relatively tiring task. We finally reached the top, where we were almost immediately blown off by the extreme, powerful wind which sweeps across the top of the crater off of the ocean to reach us on the other side.

Even though a road exists which winds around the crater a little below the rim, indubitably existing where it does to avoid the full wrath of the wind, our adventuresome selves weren’t about to take the easy way out. Nearly exactly directly across from where we had arrive was a ranger station and the Orongo park, where you can visit the location of the Bird-Man Cult ceremonies and see the two rock islets off-shore where rituals were performed. We circled the rim of the volcano, feeling through the entire walk like every time we lifted one foot off of the ground we were risking being totally blown off the face of the island.

When we arrived at the Orongo ranger station we were greeted by two of the funniest and friendliest park rangers imaginable, who chatted with us and told us jokes for quite a while before giving us a student discount to visit the park. We went out onto the cliff where the park is located and checked out all of the sights, feeling the whole time like we were in some precarious, life-or-death balance between our desire to live and the wind’s desire to sweep us into the ocean crashing into the cliff hundreds of feet below us. Unfortunately, none of the pictures either of us took accurately captures how uncertain my survival felt through the whole process. In all honesty, I don’t think we were ever actually in any sort of danger of being blown off the volcano, but the whole experience was a lot more adrenalin-filled when we imagined otherwise.

Upon returning from the cliff to the ranger station, we inquired about the possibility of descending into the crater, which seemed like it would be absolutely impossible to do when looking from about. However, the rangers told us that yes, in fact, there was fruit growing in the bottom, and if we returned to the place where we had initially arrived at the top of the volcano we would find a path winding its way down into the mysterious depths. What’s more, they gave us directions for finding a little-known of petroglyph hidden in the depths of the forest. Encouraged by their advice and instructions for making it down the crater, we continued on with our adventure, since the idea of descending a volcanic crater in order to eat tropical fruits had seduced us since we first knew it was possible.

We started down into the canyon on a steep, switch-backing trail, slipping on the shale rocks while tall grass scratched our bare legs. From above, the crater appeared to be divided into three distinct parts; at the very bottom lies a deep blue lake covered in patches of “rotting vegetation,” as the guide books said. It reminded me of the descriptions I’ve read of the floating gardens and cultivating methods used in ancient Mexico City. From the bottom of the lake to about halfway up the crater a huge forest is formed, described by the park rangers as being so dense and tall that at times daylight is incapable of penetrating through. The upper half, in sharp contrast, was bright and hot, reminiscent of pictures of the Grand Canyon. As we slid down the shale, I noticed a patch of nispero plants growing off to one side. Eager for the feast of tropical fruits to begin, we rushed over and began devouring them, while discussing the distinct possibility that we would each gorge ourselves on so much fruit that it would be impossible to climb our way out of the crater once we reached the bottom.

It was during this conversation that I realized the truly Shakespearean nature of our situation. Seduced by our insatiable appetites for the fruit which I have already describe my passion for, we were descending down an ancient volcanic crater in search of more and more and more. In order to reach the dark (and somewhat foreboding) forest we had to first pass through a thicket of leaf-bare thorn trees which we hadn’t noticed from above. At that particular moment in time, it seemed perfectly feasible for us to eat our way to the bottom, feeling sicker and sicker with each fruit and yet never being able to stop. Finally, we would reach the deep dark heart of the forest and find ourselves intoxicated and sick from the volumes of fruit we had consumed. We would fall into a deep, Rip Van Winkle sleep and awake half-goat women, or surrounded by pixies stabbing us with tiny spears, or maybe even confronted by a giant, angry talking bear wearing a top hat and carrying a cane.

Alas, nothing nearly as exciting as that ended up actually happening once we reached the bottom. The forest was rather impressive, but unfortunately the only edible fruits we found were coffee beans, lemons and guava. There were a few avocados rotting on the ground and lots of picked-clean pits, but apparently we had just missed the growing season. The petroglyph at the bottom was pretty impressive, but we had really come down there to eat the fruit that never ended up appearing. Bummer. I’m glad that we went down, because it was pretty neat, but not quite the produce department paradise we were anticipating. After wandering around for a while in the bottom of the crater we decided it was time to head back up. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t turn out to be exactly an easy feat, since we had come down an incredibly steep trail that was pretty directly vertical. However, we persevered, probably only because we never ended up locating more nispero plants, which would have just convinced us to homestead in the crater.

When we finally reached the top of the crater, there was another tourist, from Belgium, standing at the top and enjoying the view. He asked us about the trip to the bottom of the crater and what there was to see. It was apparent very early on in our conversation that he spoke English, because he started out talking to us in a mix of English and Spanish, but since the two of us responded in Spanish the entire time he followed our lead and quickly dropped the English part. Experiences like this are what make me the most proud of my progress in learning Spanish; all three of us were conversing in a language which wasn’t our primary, and even though KellyAnne and I obviously could have chosen to speak in English we were perfectly comfortable and capable in Spanish. The three of us were able to have a crystal-clear, interesting and relatively long conversation without struggling, and I never even though about the possibility of switching to English until I was looking back on the situation and realized it had all been in Spanish. When I recognized that, I felt the same sense of pride I feel when I’m on the plane and the flight attendants are making bi-lingual announcements. So far they’ve always announced in Spanish first, since we’re obviously in Chile, and I don’t even notice until they start making the same announcement in English (with a thick accent, always) that the reason I feel like I already heard all of this information is because I already have, just in Spanish. To be able to understand what someone is saying when I’m not paying direct attention, something we do all of the time, has been one of the hardest things for me to do as I’ve been learning, but I’m finally feeling like I can do it occasionally.

Anyhow, we made our way back down the side of the volcano to Hanga Roa. We had previously decided that one night during our trip we would eat out, taking advantage of the fresh fish and hopefully tasty food that they would have to offer tourists. We found a restaurant and both ordered a fresh-caught-that-morning plate of fish, and it was in fact impressively tasty. Impressively expensive, as well, but this was our one splurge eating out so we didn’t let ourselves get worked up about it.

We decided to get dessert, too, but just so that we could try something different on our only eating-out night we went a little café-bistro type place in another part of town for dessert. The prices here were even more extraordinary than the prices in the first place; we ordered a brownie and ice cream dessert to share and ended up paying $7 for it! Thank God we’d met Napohe and had cooked with him the rest of the time we were there, we wouldn’t have lasted long paying those prices for dinner each night!

When we first met Napohe, we also met his cat, a beautiful and friendly white kitty who was clearly about to give birth to the babies filling her belly at any minute. That night, when we showed back up at the house, there were 5 new, rat-like kittens mewing away in a box on the back patio. It was like a nice little present waiting for us to end the day to!