Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Easter Island By Darkness

Hola todos,

After Conor and Felipe went surfing, Conor and I went to go see my final Rapa Nui sunset. It was nice, but not the best one I have ever seen. We walked home afterwards to take warm showers and then went out for my final-hurrah dinner with a guy from Belgium who was traveling. The place was good. Conor and I shared ceviche (obviously) and a piece of grilled native fish, Toremo.
When we finished dinner, we headed back to the hostal to get changed and meet up with some of the others. We were going to go out to Pea again which apparently is even better on Thursday nights. We had some pisco which, if I haven't mentioned, is all they drink in Chile. I only felt it appropriate to have a final cheers with Easter Island with pisco. We headed out to Pea at around 11:30PM to go see the live dance show prior to the club really opening.
Upon arrival, we went in and saw that the tribal dance show going on, similar to Kari Kari. There were men wearing [not much] clothing made from grass, and face paint. Just like Kari Kari, they were taking people from the crowd. Since it was my last day, Felipe insisted that I just had to go dance. I disagreed and said no, but then realized that he was right, so I allowed one of them to grab my hand and take me out. I definitely looked like one of those awkward white people from Kari Kari. Since I wasn't entirely sure how to dance tribally, I started to mimic what the guy was doing. He was doing all these tribal dance moves that I can't even comprehend, but I still tried. It was fun, and if I looked stupid, it doesn't really matter because I most likely won't see most of those people again.
After that adventure, the club opened and we all started dancing. I tried to teach Conor how to dance. Not to spread the stereotype, but white boys cannot dance! It's as simple as that. Sorry, Conor. Since I had spent nine months in Ecuador and six months in Chile, I can say I have a rhythm, so I felt confident in trying to teach him a little dance. Well, he got better. But, two hours was not going to get him to "Dancing With The Stars" level, but better than nothing. We ran into some of the people that we had met over the past few days and chatted with them too.
All of a sudden at around 2AM, all the lights went off. I thought the bar was closing, but apparently it wasn't going to close until 3, therefore I assumed that they were just having a break from the music and lights. But then everyone started leaving so Conor and I left as well. We decided to walk back to the hostel and maybe hang out there for a little bit. Well, it turns out, the power on the entire island had gone out! Imagine that, not a single light on an island over 1,500 miles to the closest other land mass! Since neither Conor nor I had a phone or flashlight, we walked back to the hostel in pure darkness, the moon was just a small sliver. We marched there to help avoid tripping. Although, I accidentally stepped on a dog and Conor fell over a huge log. No serious damage though. We ended up stopping at a playground along the way which sounds strange, but we weren't going to go to sleep yet and I hadn't ridden a swing in forever. We swung for a little bit and then tried to slide down a slide made of wood... why would that make any sense? We ended up just sitting on the slope and having to push the other with a lot of force to move them. Either way, a fun break from walking in the dark.
We continued on to the hostel and once we arrived at the hostel, we decided to lie outside on the sidewalk and look at the stars. We saw several shooting stars, and the milky way was as visible as the moon. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Apparently the Persieds (a meteor shower) was at its peak that night. The most incredible thing is that the stars were so vibrant and visible yet I couldn't even see Conor right next to me. 
All in all, it was a wonderful eclectic array of adventures. I couldn't have asked for a better final night in Easter Island.

Conor on the wooden slide

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