Siri in Easter Island

At 6.30am I call Victor's room and sing him the Danish birthday song with energy and feeling. He sounds really groggy, but sings along for the last part - and then he's awake! Thus we're all ready when Patricia arrives with the van for our Sunrise excursion, and manage to leave the hotel ahead of schedule at 7.15. You have to be careful driving in the dark on these roads, where horses and cows often stray into the road, as well as the many dogs. When we reach Tongariki, it's still quite dark, but you can distinguish the row of moai. Although there are quite a few tourists present, people sit or stand quietly, readying their cameras and phones. At our back we hear the whinnies of a group of wild horses and in the front the tireless pounding of the waves. The sun begins to rise on our left, behind the Poike volcano, and bands of colors striate the sky. Suddenly I remember a similar moment, floating in a balloon above Cappadocia in Turkey. There's something so spec...

Easter Island is only 2 hours behind Chile, which in turn has the same time as Brazil, in spite of being 4 1/2 hours flying time west. According to the longitude we should really be 3 hours behind. We feel this, when we walk to breakfast around 8am under the starry nighttime sky, still able to pick out the southern cross, and it certainly makes for confused wakings at 5am with a lot of reading in the dark. Today we take possession of our rental car. We drive to check out a little protected harbor, around the corner from our hotel, which is where the freighters are unloaded, when the sea is calmer. Then we drive into the center of Hangaroa, basically two main streets, with scattered Tahiti-style clothes stores, restaurants and dive shops. There's ragtag feel about the scene, sort of halfway between Thimpu, Bhutan and certain touristy towns in the Brazilian northeast. We see several Polynesian men hanging out, some with their long hair tied in topknots, and others with fabulous ...