Easter Island.  The mere name is enough to make you tingle – the mystery of the ancient population that lived and died here, leaving only the enigmatic moai as their legacy.  It’s also a beast of a place to get to.  We had to go.

First impressions of this amazing place, it has to be said, weren’t great.  We flew there from Cusco just after the Inca Trail – one of those flights which is theoretically just fine (only one connection, in Lima), but in practice quite brutal – a 5pm flight from Cusco to Lima, then a seven hour layover in Lima airport before a 1am flight to Easter Island, landing at 6 in the morning.  Bear in mind that for the past few days we’d been going to bed same time between 7 and 8 at night – and the fact that the Lima airport lounge is lousy – and you’ll appreciate that we were a little on the tired and grumpy side when we landed.

Then hit Hurricane Dani.  Well, actually make that Damp Squall Dani.  The manager of the (otherwise lovely) guest house she was staying in, capable of turning the cheeriest soul despairing within a few short seconds.  “Welcome to the island.  You here for long?  Three days?  Oh.  There isn’t much to do here and it’s pretty wet right now…..” All this cheery chit chat whilst waiting for an hour for our fellow passengers just to enjoy the privilege of our 3 minute courtesy transfer to the guesthouse.  We got Dani’ed a few more times over the next few days – no, it was impossible to arrange a tour of the island (took us 10 minutes), no there were no good places to buy fresh produce (partially true, but we managed), etc, etc.  It actually affected our mood for the first half day we were there, until we realised what was happening, shrugged off our despondency and set off to explore!

And what better way to explore a mystical island full of ancient statues than by quad bike!  Sounds crazy, but actually all of the roads on one side of the island are dirt tracks and extremely difficult to navigate in a car, so a quad bike is actually a pretty solid way to get around.  Plus its FUN.  Other than when you get caught in one of the many heavy downpours that Easter Island suffers at this time of year – yep, we did, nope it didn’t bother us (that much), but that’s why we’re in full waterproofs in all the photos.

It rains a LOT there.   And the wind is also pretty crazy – think a visit to the blustery Scottish countryside in early spring and you’ve about got the measure of it. The unexpected advantage of which being the amazing rainbows we saw almost every day on the island, adding yet one more dimension of slight un-realism to the place.

First stop on the quad bike was Rono Kau crater, a crater lake covered in reeds whose crater rim also forms the edge of the island at that point.  Wildly scenic, it’s known as Witch’s Cauldron and looks just that way with the reeds simmering away on the giant circular surface. Then onto the Orongo Village, which is a partially restored old village, lived in by a tribe with a strong birdman culture.  It’s only once you’ve been on the island that the houses – hobbit like little places which don’t get much higher than about 2 foot – make sense.  Anything to escape the ever present wind.

Then finally the moment we’d been waiting for – our first glimpse of moai.  The first site we saw had a couple of broken down moai on the ground – very romantic and a great intro to the place (yes they really are that big!).  The next site, Ahu Akivi, was the money site – seven standing moai, all facing towards the sea (unusual – most of the moai faced inland as they faced towards the village they were erected to protect).  We got there just before sunset and enjoyed the place in near solitude for some time; it was magical.

The next day we went on a tour which took us to another couple of great sites – Ahu Tongariki, with 15 moai all near the coastline, and Rono Rakuru, the quarry were all the moai were created.  Rono Rakuru in particular was pretty flabbergasting – there are over 30 moai there, all still half buried in the earth (the theory is that the moai were built in advance of local big wigs’ deaths – but that the tribe then died out, or possibly ran out of trees to be able to roll the moai to their intended sites, before they could be erected).  It’s strangely like being in a tiki bar –  there’s so many moai and they’re all so well preserved that you half expect to tap one of them and find out its made of polystyrene. (They’re not.  I tried.  I hurt my fist).

Next day was a slow day to potter round Hanga Roa, see a few more moai and relax a bit.  We got up pretty early to go buy some fresh food for dinner (the island has markets, but they are pretty ad hoc, running from the time the boats land with fish to the time that everything has been sold).  Stepping outside the front door we were followed by a vaguely collie like dog.  Which, as it turned out, had adopted us for the day.  We walked to town; the dog followed.   We went into the market; the dog waited outside patiently.  Ditto at the supermarket.  The dog curled up on James’ feet whilst we enjoyed our daily indulgence of coffee and ice cream, then walked happily home with us.  It strangely made this one of our nicest relaxed days of the trip so far.

We’ve 2 theories for the dog’s delight in us: (1) James’ magnetic personality; or (2) the presence throughout the day of the enormous spiky local fish which we’d bought early in the day.  I hear the local name is dogfood fish.  It was very tasty.

Ahhhh, Macchu Picchu. The very name resonates of the mystery of an ancient, long disappeared warrior tribe and general South American strangeness. It’s one of the main attractions on the entire South American continent and definitely one of the top must dos on our trip. I’d been there before as a young’un, following the ancient Inca Trail for 3 days before finally, in the misty pre dawn, staggering up through the Sun Gate and witnessing the clouds breaking – apparently just for me – to see Macchu Picchu unveil itself briefly in the glowing dawn light. It’s a memory I treasure and one that I wanted in some way to share with James – so off we pootled from Cusco to follow the exact same trail as I’d navigated so many years before.

Of course, this time things were different. Last time I went, a guide was a suggestion rather than the now strictly regimented requirement, you could walk at will and camp wherever you liked. The trail was a little bit anarchic, wild and beautiful, but be-studded with the tiny pink jewels of other people’s toilet paper. The route is now strictly controlled, with a choice of 2 campsites available each night, typically with one placed about 2 hours before the next to allow some choice in walking distance. There are also only 500 people allowed to hike the trail each day – which eases crowding but in no way supplies the solitary experience you might think.

We had a lovely and small group to hike with – just four of us in total (an unexpected blessing of having booked really rather later than we should have done!) and fortunately all pretty well matched in terms of hiking speed. Our companions were Carlyne, a French civil engineer (James was in heaven talking tech-y bridge tunnel talk), Miriam, a German teacher and Brecht expert currently resident in Brazil, and our guide Roger, descended from the Incas (as he reminded us several times a day). Add to this seven porters and a cook (yep, I know, we were sounding pretty hardcore up to then weren’t we!!) and our little ensemble was ready to face the worst that the trail could throw at us!

The trail is actually rather wonderfully set up in terms of its route: `

• Day 1 starts with an ENORMOUS breakfast in Ollantaybambo. Calories obviously don’t count given the amount of walking you’ll be doing over the next few days but still I think James walked / waddled out of there a stone heavier. Then a few checkpoints (actually we were turned back at the checkpoint for some still rather unknown reason – the only thing we do know is that it was NOT Roger’s fault. Got sorted out eventually but not before we were all pretty fearful and rummaging in our pockets for bribes). The you set off after a nice little photo of the Inca trail sign, for a day of nice easy ambling along flat-ish surfaces, passing by the occasional village where you can buy such essentials as soft drinks and (I kid you not) ice cream….because obviously those seven porters aren’t carrying enough gear for you
• Day 2 is brutal – an early rise, fortifying maize porridge breakfast, then a vertical climb of about 800 metres over Dead Woman’s Pass (named for the shape of the mountain rather than the difficulty of the pass – or that’s what they say) followed by a descent, a further ascent of 500 metres to a second pass whose name no one can ever remember before finally descending, bone weary, to your campsite. Where you fall upon your dinner like a starving man. Or at least you do unless, like James, the day has so absolutely and whole heartedly broken you that you retire hurt to bed at about 6.45, having consumed only a few dozen little fried cheesy wontons (you get fed a lot on the trail – these were supposed to be a light pre dinner snack). I was rather delighted by this turn of events – in the whole of the seven years together, despite many attempts to break my James, I’ve always ultimately failed. Who knew it could be so easy?….Turns out all you need is a theoretical 11 hours hiking (we did it in 8 – smug smile) at altitude (max of about 4,200 metres). Now where can I find that kind of experience near London……
• Then just as you start feeling a bit fed up with this whole Inca Trail lark, comes day 3 – more climbing (and LOTS of Inca stairs – see photos) but relatively gentle and interspersed every couple of hours with amazing, isolated Inca sites looming out of the mist. These were some of our favourite Inca sites that we saw – the last one in particular, where we sat practically on our own in the middle of an ancient terraced site to watch the sunset, will stand out in our memory. Rocking up to your campsite there is a bit of facing off about whether or not anyone is going to go for a cold (glacially fed) shower before all eventually agreeing that smelling ain’t that bad. Pre dinner the cook provides you with a cake (of course) to congratulate the group on managing to stumble gasping up the trail that the porters (and cook) run up carrying 25 kilos of equipment for your comfort, on average 3 to 4 times a month. Hmmmm. Still, great cake (how do they do that on a propane stove???)

Day 4 is the Big Day, where you get up early and hike for an hour or so up to the Sun Gate (from where you get your first view of Macchu Picchu), then another hour takes you to Macchu Picchu itself. The way it used to work is that you got up an hour before dawn, legged it (I vividly remember running, gasping with pain) up to the Sun Gate then watched dawn from there (and recovered!!) before ambling down to Macchu Picchu to get there an hour or two before the day trippers arrived. Now it’s all gone a bit bonkers. You get up at 3.30 to stand in a queue for an hour and a half, then you’re allowed to set off. Everyone pegs it along at great haste to the Sun Gate, but the time at which you are allowed to set off is too late to see the dawn anyway and also too late to allow you to arrive in Macchu Picchu before the day trippers. Which unfortunately left a little of a sour note about Macchu Picchu; majestic as it is, arriving at the site after 3 days in the comparative wilderness, it felt almost obscenely crowded. Still, our guide gave us a great tour – modern theory suggests Macchu Picchu may have been a university / retreat for the wise men of the Incas which was deserted when the Spanish came and the residents were forced to re-join their community in Ollantaybambo. This feels right to me – Macchu Picchu as Hogwarts if you will. Which is pretty fitting given the magic that the place still possesses….even with the crowds.