But nevertheless I think, no visitor should miss out on this one! We were on the road to Anakena beach, almost there, when our taxi driver suddenly asked, if we knew the magnetic site. Uhm, no... So she showed us: stopped the car in the middle of the road, put the motor on idle, keys out, released the hand brake, ...and the car started moving!! It rolled UP the hill for at least 200 meters. All by itself. Seriously!
Be prepared for surprises, when living next to an airline office: One day, Florian comes home for lunch, "Look what I brought along" ...No, not bread and cheese, but bargain air tickets!! And before we knew it, we were back in our special little paradise - Rapa Nui. Two strange new moai at Ahu Akivi... Rano Kau was beautiful as always. This time we took a trail along the eastern rim of the volcano. At the end you can actually look over the edge! It's incredible (and slightly scary), how the crater wall plunges straight into the ocean. We decided against reckless cliff-climbing maneuvers, and took the long way back to Orongo, an old ceremonial village on the opposite side of the crater. There we were the lucky last ones, still allowed to see the petroglyphs. The very next day the area was sealed off, since the beautiful rocks are in danger of sliding away and need to be stabilized. For the sake of completeness also some impressions of our quad bike trip to Poike volcano and it's surrounding "attractions": Puohiro is probably something extremely important^^ The harbor of Hanga Roa is home to many turtles. Locals used to eat them, but since they became a tourist attraction, the turtles here live. I wonder how we could have missed these giants last year?? There are also lots of blowfishes swimming around, and Rapa Nui's kids love to blow them up, just as other kids love to play with Lego. Sunset at Hanga Kioe, near our hotel. After sunset we had a wonderful night out at the Te Ra'ai dinner show. Everyone got their faces painted, we were warmly welcomed with a special ceremony, and later we attempted to learn the Haku (men) and Hula dance (women). Fairly embarrassing, but funny! Dinner was an ancient curanto, that had been buried in a pit of hot lava stones for some 6-8 hours. Now they unearthed the meal in front of our eyes, barefoot, layer by layer... But the highlight was of course the show! After dinner, the "chief" took us on a fascinating journey through Rapa Nui's history, full of vigorous dancing and singing. Thanks to last year's trip, many songs were already familiar to us, and we enjoyed it a lot. The picture below looks boring, I know :-) But nevertheless I think, no visitor should miss out on this one! We were on the road to Anakena beach, almost there, when our taxi driver suddenly asked, if we knew the magnetic site. Uhm, no... So she showed us: stopped the car in the middle of the road, put the motor on idle, keys out, released the hand brake, ...and the car started moving!! It rolled UP the hill for at least 200 meters. All by itself. Seriously! Finally at Anakena beach, underneath "our" palm tree. The experience of a self-driving car certainly did not make Easter Island any less mysterious, and we are glad we came here a second time. To be continued...
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