Jason and Dani Brunner: Chile

Dani and I spent the last two weeks traveling Chile. It was a hectic and wonderful experience that we won't soon forget. We made quite a few stops and each one was very unique. We'll try and make a couple posts over the next few days to share what we did.

Dani and I left on Dec 21 with our first destination being Easter Island. The island is a world heritage site and famous for the Moai statues. It took us about 15hours of flights to get there, but it was worth it. This was my favorite part of the entire vacation. The first day there we took a tour with a native Rapanui woman. She was able to describe the culture and history of the people and island really well and was very informative. The statues were surprisingly huge and I still do not understand how the people put the hats on the statues once they were stood.

The next day we decided to hike one of the volcanoes on the island. The weather was nice and I figured there would be tons of people doing the same thing, but turns out we were the only ones on the trail. It was a steep uphill climb, but lots of fun. We were able to see the village and the different statues and beautiful ocean. The best view came when we reached the top of the volcano. The cone was huge and the entire thing was filled with a deep, fresh water lake. The vegetation on the lake is so dense in parts, that you can walk across it. Both Dani and I were amazed at the beauty of the place and were glad we made the trek. At the top there were a bunch of ruins of an old ceremonial site for the Birdman Cult. This was the religion that replaced the Moais. Of course, it started raining when we got to the top and for the beginning of our trek down.

The last day we went to the only Moai statue that has its eyes. The eyes are white coral and blue stone and were the last piece of the statue put in after it was stood. Easter Island was truly a magical and beautiful place and I would tell people to go there if they have the opportunity.