Change of Pace: Sea Caves

Sea caves! With cave art!

Next on the agenda was Ana Kai Tanata. This is a park near the southwestern tip of the Easter Island triangle.

I chose not to take the canoe.

Instead, I walked it.

I got to see a lot of the island up close. Although daily flights to Easter Island have restarted, the tourism industry is not. I walked past a lot of restaurants, and even entire hotels, that were still shuttered.

Not even the way-cool entrance is enough for that hotel to be able to re-open yet. A lot of restaurants closed. A lot of restaurants that are open keeping irregular hours. It's like a beach town in the off-season, except this should be high season.

My plan was to hike up the volcano Ranu Kao and stare into the caldera.

I abandoned that plan. First, I couldn't find what I would know for certain was the trail head -- I'm guessing it's the break in the fence here -- but that's not really a good assumption to make when you're a stranger in a strange land and you don't know the boundaries between public and private property or where you could get lost with no one around. Second, by this point, my legs were gelatinous.

To the sea caves it is!

This is the view from the cliffs at Ana Kai Tangata.

Apparently you used to be able to walk all the way down to the water, but the "no pasar" sign was up about halfway down. Good enough to keep me out.

The volcano looms to my left. Not invitingly.

And here is where the sea cave may be found:

And here is the cave.

Apparently you used to be to walk down and look into the sea cave, where cave art from the indigenous people was visible, but both the access is gone and the cave art has faded. So now it's just a cool-looking cave you can look down into.

I had worked up a powerful thirst, so I walked back to the "Aloha Food Trucks" and ordered a beer.

An "Austral." It's a Chilean beer brewed in the far south of Chile. My next destination, coincidentally, Punta Arenas. In this hemisphere, "southern" is associated with "cold," so the name "Austral" denotes cold beer. Yes, I've been in Chilean territory for a week and I've drank Chilean beer but not a drop yet of Chile's famous red wines.

For supper that evening, I returned to Neptune's Island:

Again, many restaurants are closed and some of the open restaurants are keeping irregular hours. And I was not interested in going to a restaurant with a dinner "show" -- not my thing -- it's OK if it's yours -- but I'll save the Polynesian dancing dinner show for when I finally get to Hawaii. So the known quantity it would be. But this time I would order a regular meal:

Risotto con camarones. Shrimp risotto. I ordered yet another Chilean beer with supper, even though wine would have been a good accompaniment. This was another Chilean beer: Kuntsmann, a craft beer from Valdivia in Central Chile.

I even ordered dessert:

Coconut panna cotta. Just like your Italian grandma would make, if she Polynesian blood.

The sun was setting on Hanga Roa.

Here is the sunset over Ahu Hotake in Hanga Roa harbor.