The Plan, Part I

By request, a short preview of where we are initially headed…

After the better part of 3 weeks going cross eyed looking at flight schedules and route maps I fixed a Round-The-World itinerary. First stop is Chile – due to various “rules” our tickets begin and end in Santiago de Chile. We expect to spend four days in Santiago, take a look around the city, take a brief trip to Valparaiso and maybe a few vineyards (well, it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it?).

From Santiago we will fly to Easter Island for another 5 days to relax and explore the moai statues and potentially the underwater scene a little as well, and then travel on to Tahiti. After a few days of what I am sure will be very arduous conditions in our hotel in Tahiti we set out to the first 'real' destination – the Marquesas islands.

Ua Pou, Marquesas Islands. Click to see more pictures on Flickr.

Although not well known in Western Culture, the striking volcanic scenery of these remote islands have captivated many who have visited. Paul Gauguin spent his final years in the Marquesas, the American writer Herman Melville based his famous novel Typee there and Thor Heyerdahl spent a year there in his early life about which he wrote his book ‘Fatu Hiva’.

In choosing our base we relied on the words of Robert Louis Stevenson (also a visitor to the islands):

“I have watched the morning break in many quarters of the world, and the dawn that I saw with most emotion shone upon the bay of Anaho.” 1888, aboard the schooner Casco.

We will stay in a small pension in the bay of Anaho, which should be a bit of an adventure as there are no roads – it’s either load up our bags onto horses or find a boat to hire!

After paying our respects to Gauguin, we also intend to spend a week on the remotest island of Fatu Hiva, a small island with a population of only a few hundred. The island is accessible only by sea and reputedly has one of the most beautiful bays of the Pacific, the Baie des Verges (previously the more obviously symbolic Baie des Vierges until the missionaries got hot under the collar about a bay called “Bay of Phalli” and changed it to “Bay of Virgins”!).

Fatu Hiva, Marquesas Islands. Click to see more pictures at Flickr.

After that it’ll be back to Tahiti before heading off to the next mystery destination (also a ‘Scores destination’ you’ll be pleased to hear) – stay tuned!

Note: The above pictures are from www.flickr.com, we expect to post our own photos after the trip.

#Chile #Itinerary #Marquesas #Polynesia