We were very happy to see that the sidewalk bordering the waterfront which was under construction and a real mess last year is now complete, and it is spectacular! It's also shortened the walk to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti by at least 5 minutes and avoids the congestion across the street. Oh, I wish that had been completed last winter. It provides direct access from the cruise ship to the beautiful park along the waterfront that we frequented last year during our Hotel Tiare Tahiti stay. We returned to the ship for lunch and made Chaplins WiFi part of the afternoon too.
After dinner in the Panorama Buffet, we disembarked the Pacific Princess around 8pm this evening and took a Princess transfer to the airport in Papeete. By purchasing the transfer ($78 total), we were able to use the ship as our base today, eating all of our meals and keeping our carry on luggage on the ship and our large suitcases secured in a tent on the pier. Though we had to be moved out of our cabin by 8am (the new passengers started boarding by noon), we were actually able to rest a bit in loungers on the shaded Promenade Deck this afternoon, which was a very good thing because at 1:30am tonight, we are flying across 2600 miles of South Pacific Ocean from Papeete, Tahiti to the town of Hanga Roa on Easter Island.
It's the 'new territory' I alluded to almost a month ago. :-)
While we both knew that Easter Island was reachable by cruise ship, the itineraries that stop there are rare, and weather can prevent a ship from being able to tender passengers ashore over half of the time. It's commonly said that, if you have your heart set on a particular destination, it's best not to rely on a cruise ship to take you there. G wondered aloud if there was an airport on the island (really, we didn't even know at that point), and I quickly got on my iPad to find out.
As with most things we do, we jumped on the idea of traveling to Easter Island just as soon as it entered our minds...but researched the heck out of it before committing any non-refundable money. One evening in late April, we were watching the History Channel on TV. A documentary about Easter Island was being shown, and five minutes into it, G revealed that he has always been fascinated with the island and its unique history and really wanted to visit it someday. I hadn't felt that same yearning (Antarctica still tops my bucket list), but I am not unlike the family dog who, when a leash appears and not knowing where the trip is going, is still wild with excitement. I want to go anywhere...everywhere, and Easter Island, remote as it is, still meets that discriminating criterion.
While we both knew that Easter Island was reachable by cruise ship, the itineraries that stop there are rare, and weather can prevent a ship from being able to tender passengers ashore over half of the time. It's commonly said that, if you have your heart set on a particular destination, it's best not to rely on a cruise ship to take you there. G wondered aloud if there was an airport on the island (really, we didn't even know at that point), and I quickly got on my iPad to find out.
Well, of course there's an airport on Easter Island (the most remote one in the world!), and, if you're from the U.S., your tax dollars initially built its single runway. In the 1960s, the original airstrip was constructed and an air base established by the U.S., allowing the arrival of one flight per week from Chile. Prior to that, all shipments to the island arrived by boat, and, as recently as 100 years ago that boat arrived just once a year.
The U.S. air base was closed after the 1970 election of Chilean President Allande, but the runway was expanded by the U.S. in 1987, intended for use as an abort site for space shuttles taking off from Vandenberg AFB in California on polar orbital flights. While it was never needed for that purpose (plans were scaled back after the Challenger explosion), the expansion also allowed landings of the modern-day wide-body jets that must travel over two thousand miles from anywhere to reach it. It's almost the width of the island!
The U.S. air base was closed after the 1970 election of Chilean President Allande, but the runway was expanded by the U.S. in 1987, intended for use as an abort site for space shuttles taking off from Vandenberg AFB in California on polar orbital flights. While it was never needed for that purpose (plans were scaled back after the Challenger explosion), the expansion also allowed landings of the modern-day wide-body jets that must travel over two thousand miles from anywhere to reach it. It's almost the width of the island!
Despite having a world class runway, there still aren't a lot of flights going to Easter Island (eight a week!), and almost all that do originate in Santiago, Chile. In what must have been fate, one LAN flight per week also leaves Easter Island bound for Papeete, Tahiti, and then departs Papeete a couple of hours later to return. When we discovered we could disembark the Pacific Princess after it arrived in Papeete this morning and then tonight fly to Easter Island, we knew this was something we had to do.
Within an hour we'd booked a rustic bungalow at Cabanas Ngahu on the waterfront in the island's only town of Hanga Roa.
Within an hour we'd booked a rustic bungalow at Cabanas Ngahu on the waterfront in the island's only town of Hanga Roa.
Source: http://www.ngahu.cl/cabanas.html
By June 1, we added air reservations, and there was no turning back. While our days were spent with our usual summer busy-ness, our summer evenings were spent reading passages of books about the island to each other, and watching the many videos on Netflix and YouTube while sitting on the deck.
We knew from our transpacific cruises that we love Polynesia, and last year's extended stay in French Polynesia only reinforced that opinion. This is a part of the world I'd love to see us return to again and again, but it's going to get considerably more difficult to see the parts of Polynesia we've not yet visited. We've already been to two of the three corners of the Polynesian Triangle (New Zealand and Hawaii), and getting to Easter Island was a logical next step. It's fortuitous to be able to combine that with our cruises this year. Flying to Easter Island from our home airport would require at least three flights, 18 hours and $1400 per person. We'll be flying there direct in less than a third the time at less than half the cost.
Of course, we had to do this!
Source: http://etc.ancient.eu/2013/03/26/polynesians-in-california-evidence-for-an-ancient-exchange/
So I'm posting this as we are sitting in Faa'a Airport in Papeete, awaiting the 5 1/2 hour flight on LAN Airlines to Easter Island. An overnight flight in Economy over 2600 miles of dark Océano Pacifico. These are so NOT a few of my favorite things.
Next stop: Easter Island...Rapa Nui (in the Polynesian language of Rapa Nui)...Isla de Pascua (in Spanish)...Île de Pâques (in French)...The Microscopic Dot in a Big, Big Sea I Hope our Pilot Can Find (in me-speak)
Pray for us. Really. I mean it.
;-)