Forgoing breakfast for extra sleep instead, Hannah and I stopped off at a local grocery store to buy road trip snacks before hiring a car. I had seen a bunch of cute Suzuki Jimnys driving around town and was hoping I’d finally get a chance to drive one. They’re one of my favourite little off-roaders and if they had a few more luxury extras (just minor things like central remote locking…), I would’ve bought one instead of my current ride. Anyway, we arrived at the rental company and I was stocked to learn, yes, I would finally get to zip around in a Jimny! Talk about a great start to the day. Now, my license may let me drive a manual car legally, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve actually driven one. So it was a bumpy start to our adventure, but at least we were off! Hannah was on road rule duty, making sure I remember which side of the road to drive on. Our plan didn’t quite work, with her forgetting to remind me a few time when I veered a little too close to the other side, but thankfully, road rules don’t seem to be the biggest priority here.

First stop was the crater lake and Easter Island museum where Hannah played tour guide since she’d visited the site a few days ago and sneakily shadowed a tour group. The site of the museum was where different tribes would come to compete in the birdman completion. From the cliff that the museum sits on, men would have climb down and swim out to a nearby rocky outcrop and wait for the first albatross to lay eggs, the first guy to grab the egg and swim it safely to the starting point would be crowned leader for a year.

Once we had our fill of Easter Island history, our next stop was to be the Moai quarry I visited during my tour. My turn to play tour guide! That’s pretty much how the rest of the day went. Aided by my trusted map that I used for hiking, and an awesome map app that didn’t need data or wifi, we pretty much randomly drove around the whole day, stopping if we came across something interested, bypassing others that didn’t seem worth it. We did a bit of a photoshoot at the iconic Moai row. So rather than bore you with a blow by blow account of the day, here’s a bunch of photos. I will add that we ended the day watching the sunset from the campsite, a fitting end of a fun day.

Oh, and before I forget, I had promised my Galápagos family that I’ll send them a postcard from Easter Island, so the next morning, before I flew back to Santiago, I headed back to the main drag in town in search for a post office. And true to my word, 2 postcards are on their way to Canada and Switzerland! Turns out you could stamp your passport with an Easter Island stamp at the post office, but I had left my passport back at camp. Slightly bummed, but I still have hundreds of photos that well and truly makes up for it.