Another Day, another RTW trip: Part 4

Welcome back! 

We were thankful to have caught our flight to Santiago and to Easter Island. The movies were great (though I was starting to run out of palatable options) and the kosher meals catered out of Bogotá were Stogel Long Life meals, same as what was catered on LATAM from Madrid and just as...well...I'm gonna call the food "undefinable," despite the noted labels. Most of the other kosher meals were great. The meals from Hong Kong to Johannesburg were excellent (catered from London). The ones out of JFK with Cathay, less so. The meals from MPM-DOH-FRA were Qatar kosher meals from WAM Catering. There's only one kosher meal with them. Fish. Frozen since time immemorial. It's fine once...less so four times. They bring it with them from Doha, so even if you're coming back to Doha, you can look forward to the same meal. Only with long flight and layover times (like the time I flew them from Chicago) are they forced to cater out of the departing city. With their meals, you don't forget the taste easily, but the smell of that fish out of wrapping especially (or the fish in a glass canister that comes with the fish meal). Still ate it all, though, or at least what was edible. 

Anyways...

After yet another miserable connection in Santiago (flights to Easter Island-IPC are considered international, and we seem to always be traveling in Santiago where the lines are the longest) and a stop in the Pacific Club lounge with the Priority Pass, we walked to our gate for our flight to Easter Island. This was a newer 787 Dreamliner with all of the trimmings. Interestingly enough, every non-domestic flight we had taken with LATAM was on a Dreamliner. We boarded and got ready for an adventure. There were even a bride and groom aboard. Must not be super comfy traveling in a wedding dress, though.

Approximately five hours and a very short nap later, we touched down at IPC. The kosher breakfast option catered out of Santiago was gross (the lunch/dinner option catered from SCL was totally passable and just could've used a bit of salt). 

Welcome to sunny Hanga Roa!

Easter Island is a fascinating place.Cars are necessary to reach the more remote parts of the island, but there is a more "downtown" area as well at which the majority of hotels and hostels lie. Once we arrived, we dropped our bags at our hostel and made our way down the main road toward Tahai.

Tahai at sunset

We split a car with some of the locals for a sunrise view the following morning. The day was rainy and misty, but it's an island and these things happen. 

Animals in the road

A mountain of moai

Kneeling moai

Though we saw a good portion of the island, and we very much enjoyed the beach in the northeast, we didn't get a chance to see everything that day. The following day, we headed to Orongo, a beautiful location with an incredible crater-like chasm.

The greatest find--Pap y Bilz popsicle

We tried to take the island in stride. We gave ourselves four days on the island, and I think that was exactly right. We got to enjoy it without feeling too pressured to see everything or do everything all at once.

In some sense, Tahai became our center. We walked there almost every night for sunset. On Saturday night, after the sun went down, we watched a pretty incredible coming-of-age (or possibly pre-marriage) ceremony. We quietly watched them as the dusk settled around us. The ukulele played, the people sang, and the family was all dressed in white. For me, that was an extraordinarily special experience. 

Do not try on moai as shoes

Finally, after checking our bags and one last ice cream, we made our way on foot to the airport for our flights home (IPC-SCL-LAX-ORD). Finally, we didn't need to grab our bags and recheck at SCL. That was nice. And two out of three of the kosher meals were passable (the dinner options). The breakfast was the same as the flight to Easter Island and just as nasty. 

Victory indeed

We even got a special treat and were able to use the Qantaas First Class Lounge upon arrival into LAX. It did not disappoint.

Plus, I was finally able to finish the movie I started on my very first flight of the journey: How to Train Your Dragon. And it did not disappoint. Neither did many of the other 20+ movies I had watched on the journey (I think Evan maybe watched 2? He's a much better sleeper than I am!).
We are indeed living in incredible times. The trip took an obscene amount of planning and calls to the RTW desk at American Airlines. Those agents are some of the most incredible people I know, and this trip as we had it would not have been possible without their help. I am so grateful to my travel buddy Evan as well for making this trip very special, and to the travel gods for making sure that we made all of our connections (baruch Hashem!).

That's it for this journey. Just finishing up this log on my return from FLL. I am flying ORD-FLL-PHX-ORD. That makes the segments I have used so far MPM-DOH-FRA-SCL-BOG-SCL-IPC-SCL-LAX-ORD-FLL-PHX-ORD. Next up, SFO, JFK, and the wrap-up. What a time!!!