1. Easter Island is smaller than I thought. Quite a few Moais can be viewed in short walking.
2. Most things, including the produces sold in the trucks of local people. Shipping cost is the same as in the main land.
3. Same timezone as in Peru, strange!
3/28 Wednesday. Cloudy - rain - sunny - rain
Arrived ~6am. 2 hours behind mainland Chile, but should be more. Sun dosen't rise until 8. I'll stay here for 4 nights. Because there are only flights on Wednesday and Sunday to/from Lima. Maybe more frequent to Santiago.
It took forever to go through the border control. Toilet has no paper nor trash can. A sign warns you not to threw toilet paper in toilet. Bought an entrance ticket to Rapa Nui national park at its airport booth for $50 instead of $60 (kids $10, national CLP10000). Free wifi. The only ATM at the airport didn't want to give me money. I had to walk to my hostel1. Luckily the town is tiny. So nothing is too far. After dumping my bag, I walked around the town, got some money2, bought some food. Things here are expensive3, since they have to be flown in. But why local produce like banana, corn is also expensive? A few trucks with fruit and potatoes are parked on the main street in the morning, same price as in the stores, but looks better. The veggie in stores look withered, or even rotten. Saw my first Moai at the water front. Hot walking under the sun, even the temperature isn't too high, maybe upper 20s. After sun down, breezy and cool, very pleasant. Mosquitoes, many small ones. Their bites are itchy, but not for too long. The public library offers free computer use and wifi after they take down your passport info. But the Internet is very slow (downloading < 100kbit/s). Visited the tourism office, reserved a tour there. 3/29 Thursday. Overcast, drizzle.
9:00 tour. I arrived at the tourism office 10 minutes before, and it was closed until 9:15. I didn't even know whom I was going with. The bus came at 9:30. More pickups. In the end I liked this tour by Rapa Nui Travel Limitada4. Good guide. Good English. I probably learned more than if I went by myself.
First stop: Vaihu, 8 fallen Moais. According to our guide, in 1838, there was only one standing Moai in the whole island. Archeologist restored some Moais. In the 1870s the first censor recorded only 111 natives, after the internal war, famine, pirates, and diseases brought by the invaders. Lots of errant horses. The island was leased to a British company for sheep farming from 1903 to 1953.
2nd stop, Akahanga. 2 platforms, more fallen Moais. Some house foundations in boat shape, cooking holes, chicken coop (all cruedly assembled with volcanic rocks), a cave. King Hotu Matu'a was buried here. Of course, no bones or any other evidence of the burial was ever found. A guy with a huge hairdo was selling seashell necklaces and small reproduced Moais.
Stone quarry, Rano Raraku. It's one of the two national park sites, so my ticket was stamped with the date. I have 5 days to visit the other site. Most of the Moais can be seen from the road. There is a cafe and toilet ($1) before entering the gate. Lots Moais here, some still attached to the rocky hill, some standing in dirt waiting to be finished, some broken on the way to their destination. Some had carvings. The biggest one is over 20m long, lying down. You can see Tongariki from here. Walked to the crater. There is a small lake (4m deep?), more Moais on the east side of the lake. 
Tongariki has 15 restored Moais. One has a red rock on its head, Pukao. They stand in a row, back to the ocean, facing inland (their village). Quite impressive.Te Pito Kura, the navel of the universe, is on the north coast of the island. This stretch of the road is pretty bad. It's just an oval rock with some iron, compass needle shake when placed close. There is also a fallen Moai here.
Last stop today is the beach of Anakena, also where the first people landed. Palm trees, sand. Restored Moais with head pieces. Windy and drizzled a bit. Some swam here. Water was pretty cold for me. The hill to the east has some picnic tables in the trees. The west side is the parking and food/shop area.3/30 Friday. Sunny.
Since the library is closed on weekends, I decided to upload some photos to my blog today, and do the tourist things later this weekend. I had plenty of time. Shipped a small box to my sister (less to carry for me), wrote more postcards.
3/31 Saturday. Cloudy - sunny.
Had to climb the kitchen window to get something from the fridge, because the door was locked, and no one was up. 8am already, but still quite dark.
Walking out at 8:20 with rain gear, sunscreen, swim suite (just in case), food and drink. Tahai is 20 minutes north of town, one of the Moais has his eyes restored. Quite a nice site, with many house ruins, a built ship loading area. View of the town.Hanga Kioe is less than 10 minutes north. From here to Te Peu, along the coast, rugged, scenic. Walking among grass and horse droppings, for ~1.5 hours. Ahu Te Peu is not restored. Fallen Moais, large boat shaped house foundations.
Turn inland. Ana Te Pahua is less than 30 minutes east. Big enough cave to walk through. 25 minutes later is Akivi, 7 Moais facing the coast.
1 hour later, dust, warm, through farms (some cattle and cow), I reached Puna Pau, the crater where Pukaos (the red head piece of Moais) were built. Scoria with red oxidation of iron. Some of the Pukaos have carvings on them. Sine are large: 3m cross, 2m high. From here, a good view of the ocean and Hanga Roa town. A nice young couple gave me a ride back to town. 10 minutes later I was back home, instead of maybe one hour. I'm out of shape. Tired. Relaxed on the porch for the rest of the day, drinking tea. The owner gave me a very sweet mango from the back yard. I tried to eat guavas (guayaba) that I picked along the road. Too many seeds. Gave up.
~10pm, I was invited to a BBQ party in the front yard. Relatives, guests, even one who didn't even stay here. BBQ ribs and sausages, sweet potato, Whiskey, beer, soft drink. Some were proposing go dancing in the town center. I had to retire, because tomorrow morning, I still had a place to visit before catching my flight. Felt like home.4/1 Sunday.
8:30 depart. Hanga Piko and Ahu Riata is just 10 minutes walk south wrat of town. One restored Moai.
Near Ana Kai Tangata, I started on maybe the only trail on the island, Te Ara O Te Ao. Well marked (however i met a lady who got lost at the visitor center). Took me ~1 hour to get to the crater @320m. Along the way, 2 dogs, a group of cattle, drizzled, a stretch of eucalyptus trees, mostly grass and shrubs.
It was very windy toward the top. Great view of the crater and the landscape. Cross the road, continued along the crater, until the visitor center. Clean washroom (no water in the sink). Showed my ticket. The office's exit door leads to the path of Orongo ceremonial village, set on the narrow slope between the crater and the sea. Every September, in anticipation of the return of manutara (sooty tern), tribal chiefs or their representatives came here for the birdman competition: climbed down the cliff, swam to the little rocky islet, Moti Nui, looking for the first egg. 
There are houses built with slabs, petroglyph (fading with time) carved on rocks, an Ahu (but no Moai). By then, the Moai period was over. From the 16th century until 1867, the birdman cult thrived. The only Moai found here is now in British Museum. That one is unique: many carvings on his back.On the way back, checked out the cave of Ana Kai Tangata. Right by the ocean. The cave doesn't lead anywhere. Some red drawings on the wall. Back home to wash my feet, eat lunch. The friendly husband of Sandra cut me a big slice of watermelon. Sandra and her friend spent quite some time making lei. I dozed off on their porch.
5:20pm flight back to Lima. I'm still left with ~$20 of pesos, but didn't dare to by anything. Airport wifi was problematic.
Notes
