Last week I mentioned that Easter Island is my happy place, and this week’s picture shows a little bit of why; there is nothing there… well… almost nothing.  This picture was shot from Orongo looking back towards Hanga Roa, the only town on the island.  Outside of that, there are a couple farms towards the other end of the island… the “big heads”, and that’s about it!

    Holly and I had bummed around most of the day and she wasn’t feeling well.  Knowing that I couldn’t sit still, she sent me on my way without her.  I caught a cab up to Orongo by myself and managed to fumble through enough Spanish to get walking directions from the driver on how to use trails to get back to the hotel instead of walking the road.  By the time we arrived, the attendants had all left as well as the tourists… there wasn’t a soul around (interestingly enough, most of the tours on the island are finished by 5 or so, so if you rent a car or catch a cab, you’ll have the different sites all to yourself!).  It was so AMAZING.  The sun was getting low in the sky and I remember feeling so energized and excited to be there.  I literally ran around the rim of the now dormant volcano… snapping away with my camera.  I jumped off of and over rocks… I think at one time I may have ran with my arms out as though flying.  I felt like a kid.  I was truly living a dream.

    That “nothing-ness” I mentioned a minute ago came up while we were trying to line up the trip.  Our travel agent, Judy Rouse, says it was an adventure just booking the trip!  She had consulted with someone else and had mentioned that we wanted to stay for a week.  This consultant said that most people stay two days… three days tops.  We insisted that we wanted to stay longer, to which the person that Judy was speaking with replied “Do they realize there is literally NOTHING there?”.  Yep… and that is exactly why I wanted to go.  Nothing but a small piece of land in the middle of the ocean… with a bunch of stone carvings that no one can quite explain… and a dream.

–Dan Thompson