The Raw and the Cooked...ie. my dinner and me

I noticed an espresso machine in the ice cream shop next to the dive shop on Saturday. After picking up my dive CD this morning I sat down over a very nice whipped cream topped latte to watch my tortuga friends in the tiny harbour. I'm still marvelling at the clarity of the water. It's easy to see the bottom through a depth of 8 feet. The sea turtles come into the shore and feed on the green stuff growing on the rocks. They aren't put out by people so much and trundle along slowly if they feel too crowded. They tend to stick to harbour side and give the adjacent tiny beach and splashing kids a miss.

The coffee on this trip hasn't been the greatest. I had very good espresso in Ushuaia and then here but that's it. Even Bruse's Starbucks' was a bit watered down in flavour. It's a very minor disappointment though.

Apres cafe I headed up to the end of the airport runway on my bike to partake in an island past time: plane spotting. My guide book said it was popular to stand at the end of the runway while the daily plane lands. It was deafening and exhilarating it said. Well my ears must have be done in by years of city dwelling. I was off center from the runway and could only hear the odd car just until the jet was almost over the road. The tree cover here prevented any visuals in advance. There was a little buzz and a vroom and the plane was on the ground - didn't even have time to get my camera out. Oh well. I will check it out again the next time I'm here.

It was onwards up to the CONAF, the Chilean forestry ministry,  headquarters. They are trying to reintroduce native species and have set up a number of tradition Rapa Nui gardens as seen at the ruins around the island. They are enclosed with circular volcanic stone walls about 1070mm high and about 3m across - some are doubled and form a figure eight. This protects the plants from the winds and helps with humidity control. They are growing things like kumara (sweet potato,) guayaba (guava) and toromiro trees.

In my search for another cave I ended up at the bottom of a cliff on a rocky beach taking pics for a while when some A-HOLE tourista started heaving big rocks over the cliff edge. I yelled a few times but the wind direction was not in my favour. I managed to wrench my right hip scrambling out of there. The idiot was gone by the time I got myself and the bike to the cliff top. My mountain bike was very light I could lift it with one hand. The path up here took me to the stairs to Ana Kai Tangata. This cave features a few petroglyph paintings from the Birdman cult. There are painted with natural earth pigments and animal fat a bit faded but intact. There is speculation that this cave may have been a gathering point before the birdman competition. The coast is beautiful here but that's getting a bit redundant as the coast is beautiful every where on this island.

I made friends with a little dog who started following me and I gave him a couple pieces of my apple plus the core. He ate it up with so much gusto that I wondered if the many dogs like the many horses, are free range. He was sweet and cute up until we got to the road, then he started chasing cars like a raving lunatic. He left me at the turn off to the main road.

I took a little siesta just like the rest of the islanders before going for a swim with my tortuga friends. There are baby waves breaking offside to the tiny harbour that attract surfers. If I were staying longer I would have considered lessons. It's easy to spot the turtle hang out as they pop their heads up every 10 minutes or so with a little snort and a gasp as they inhale. I found a small one at first who led me to a gigantic one - bigger around than I can stretch my arms. I was wishing that I had brought my snorkel or that I could hold my breath as long as them! The gigantatron headed out to sea away from the splashing surfers and in doing so led me into a bale of about a dozen at which point I gave up on pictures and just watched.

Since it was my last nite AND this is such a pristine part of the world with healthy fish I decided to throw all caution to the wind and have ceviche for dinner. I went to Te Moana where I had such great seafood on my first night. The waiter suggested that I try a Pisco sour and assured me that it didn't have raw egg in it. It was a Pisco sour that set off 5 weeks of Túpac Amaru revenge in Peru 10 years ago but that one had raw egg and I was in a jungle.

Ceviche is "cooked" through marinading in something aciditic like lemon or lime juice and often with some chillis. Since there is no heat involved it needs to be prepared with super fresh fish. Even then, because there has been no heat used, there is no guarantee of an not having an adverse reaction. This version was mild. It was thinly sliced red onion, corriander and cucumber and various local fish along with Ecuadorean shrimp which I eyed suspiciously but ate anyway. It was delicious and so far I feel fine.

I got burnt, of course, in spite of copious quantities of sunscreen. It wasn't too bad except for my lower lip which stung like a bugger from the lemon marinade at dinner...

In the evening I headed over to Ahu Tahai for one last sunset and bumped into Edgar enroute. He spent part of the day at the beach chatting up the LAN Chile crew who will be attending on the flight back to Santiago which we are both on. It was a lovely pink and orange sunset and a lovely ending to my stay here.