Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night
I have found this fake trailer on the blog Torréfaction. The 49% geek in me wishes that a movie based on the super hero Green Lantern would be made, also i can say that the choice for the lead character is a wise one. Let's hope this gives ideas to some people...
La suite!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Alcohol Stronger Than You Think
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
My Sound Of The Day
How to make diamond out of coal? This is one of the best cover i have ever listened to: Yael Naim - Toxic.
La suite!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Lazy Week-end, Blue Week-end
To do absolutely nothing during a week-end except a nice little dive to be completely relaxed.
You would almost think that one of them is ruling all of them.
La suite!
Friday, May 15, 2009
See Easter Island And Never Leave!
It seems that Easter Island has a special attraction on its visitors and more particularly its female visitors. While looking for souvenirs to bring back, I met a girl who was speaking French. She explained to me that she was in charge of her aunts booth while her boyfriend was gone fishing the evening meal. As we were talking she told me that her aunt was in fact her boyfriend’s aunt and that she has left Chile to come live with him on the island.
A year earlier she came to the island on holydays where she met him, they instantly clicked and never left each other during her stay. Once back in Chile, he was calling her everyday to ask her to come live with him; after a while he got to her and she finally accepted his invitation (he even paid the plane ticket because she didn’t have the money). She has been living with his family ever since, of course it was very hard for her family to understand: would you let your 24 year old daughter leave home to go live with a stranger on an island? 4 months ago, her father told her that she was banned from home as long as she wasn’t married; she now has very little contact with her family. It seems that this is quite a common story on the island. She didn't really want to get married right away and was not thinking about having kids, she was living her love story as simply as possible without asking too many questions. For her, life was easy and she wasn't thinking at all about complex western relationships. To be in a world where human relationships are not ruled by fake pretence must be quite soothing.
In the evening, we went to the traditional dance ballet KariKari, it was a real pleasure to see that the ballet had changed and that the dancers were just not reproducing the same old thing over and over again. When looking at the dancers expressions you could feel how much they liked to be where they were and do what they were doing, it was quite remarkable.
After the show, we made a pisco stop at the Te Moana bar, the alcohol is a perfect mix with guava juice even if the waitress doesn’t think so. When she understood that I wanted to mix the 2 liquids she looked at me like I was totally crazy; on this island you only mix the pisco with a soft drink. To conclude the evening, we went to the Topa Tangi where a live band will play the local dance floor hits. The ballet dancers made a quick show before changing their costume for everyday clothes and go break hearts among the mainly female audience. On Rapa-Nui there is more female than male so women will not wait to be asked to dance, they will choose the one they like and will ask him to dance with them for a song or for the night. Rapa-Nui women are very careful of their men acquaintances, they are known to be very jealous. We danced a lot, then once the place closed some women asked us to come with them to a new club that just opened, we declined because at such a time our bed seemed more tempting than a room full of sweating people.
Walking back to the hotel, we were followed by a pack of dogs, this happened to us a few times before, they seem to be only following foreigners. This time they followed us inside our hotel even though we carefully closed the gates. As we were inside our bungalow I heard a bump on the door, I discovered 4 dogs staying in front of the door as I opened it. I tried to move one with my foot (I didn’t want to get bitten while trying to catch it) hoping they would get the message but 2 minutes later I heard one of them barking. This pack of dog is always led by a female which is being followed by the males which try to fuck her and she barks when they try. That female was following the foreigners, I had to get rid of her to get rid of the pack! I went out of the bungalow, grabbed a chair and started grinding it on the floor so that the dog would understand. I ran after the female, always getting her out of the different places she was trying to hide until she went to a dark place, I had to stop running after her because I couldn’t see a black dog in a dark place. I decided to start running after the other dogs holding the chair high above my head but those bastards run very fast. In the end, I caught no dogs but there was no disturbance for the rest of the night. I always have great stories when I come back from this island, it truly is a great place.
La suite!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
My Sound Of The Day
I discovered this fine piece while watching the Watchmen movie trailer: The Smashing Pumpkins - The End Is The Beginning Is The End.
La suite!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Rano Raraku
Today, i started the day by a quick trip to the only bank on the island. The only ATM only accepts MasterCard so you have to go in the bank and show your passport to get your money. You can't get more than 200000 Pesos, which is 370$, i suppose they are afraid someone might try to buy the whole island.
Today's visit was more about moais over time, the way they were erected and how they were moved from the stone-pit to their slab. The slabs were the moais are placed evolve with each passing generation, the pascuans will use the old moais to increase the size and height of the slab before the arrival of the brand new moais. The slab is also used as a graveyard, the pascuans would put the remains of their deceased in between the rocks. when looking closely at 2 moais one can actually see that no 2 moai look alike, each moai reproduce the physical characteristics of the ancestor it represents. Only when the moai received its eyes that it becomes the one "that talks with the sky", before that it is only stone.
As in many primary culture, the masculine and feminine phallic symbols are often depicted: the moai is in fact the representation of the male genitalia and the neck would be its foreskin. The legend says that young stone cutters didn't know how to make the neck on the moais, they went to see the master so that he would explain to them how to sculpt the moai's neck. While they were staying at his home, they talked about a lot of thing but none of them the reason why they came to see him. Having learned nothing they decided to leave, as they were on the way he shouted at them: "to solve your problem, look between your legs!". The pascuans would wear their hair in a bun, thus the moai is wearing what is called a pukao
- Moai=mo + ai=phallus + action
- Pukau=pu + kau=hole + labia minora
Moai paro is the last moai that was seen standing by the foreigners before the locals decided to put it to the ground. In pascuan history the moai would be put to the ground by a rival tribes, that would be the worst offense that could be done because the moai who is the symbol of one ancestor can't look to the sky anymore hence he can't talk with god anymore. When the foreigners started coming regularly, they brought their fare share of disasters and illness to the island, pascuans decided to put their moai to the ground hoping the ancestors would no longer send them more ills. This moai is 33.1 feet tall and 41.3 feet with its pukao on top.
On Anakena beach, one of the few beach of the island, you can sometime see a pascuan wearing only a cache-sexe climb the coconut tree, throw down some coconuts, open them by crushing them on a stone then offering them to the tourists. I can tell you that my wife liked him very much.
La suite!
Friday, May 8, 2009
Live From Easter Island
Second trip for me to Easter Island. We are dead because the flight is leaving at 00h30 and lasts 5 hours, you get to Hanga Roa at 10h30 not at all ready to start visiting the island. At the airport, the security team is checking whether the newcomers have the swine influenza, if one would get it on this island of 4000 souls it could get pretty ugly very fast. You get picked up at the airport and you have a few hours to rest before going sight seeing, if not for this we would probably be sleeping non-stop the whole afternoon.
Today we visit the Rano Kau volcano, a long time ago its crater used to be the main source of drinkable water of the island, women would climb down the slopes with small buckets and bring the water back to their villages (it would mean many many return trips). They would also use the water in the crater to clean the clothes, would you see yourself climbing up and going down a 50 or 60 degrees slope while carrying some things.
When you find yourself on that side of the volcano and and you face the bird island, you really get the feeling that earth is a disc and not a globe. I wonder if the Rapa Nui were thinking the same thing when then were climbing down the cliff and swimming to get the bird egg on the bird island or if the only thing interesting for them was their island.
On Saturday, i will see the bird island closer as i will be diving along its shores; here you can see as far as 60 meters underwater, it should be very interesting.
La suite!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
The Blue Lagoon, Your Personal Outdoor Swimming Pool
Today we went to see the blue lagoon, it is in fact a lagoon inside a lagoon as it is located inside the Rangiroa lagoon but you still have to step out of the boat and walk to get there.
Once in i recommend to wear shoes in the water at all time to avoid stepping on coral, stones or any other thing that might hurt you.
The lagoon is in average 50 cm deep, this is like a huge naturally heated swimming pool. When you start swimming you will find yourself close to a lot of fishes, some rays or some young black tip sharks.
Quick lunch on a small island followed by a long swim along the blue lagoon small coral reef. You might see some parrot fish, trunk fish, butterfly fish, surgeon fish, some sharks with remoras on the side...
Poisson Coffre
To end the day the way it should, you get to swim in the middle of a lot of adult black tip sharks, i don't know why but people from the US are always scared that a shark might eat them, they should stop watching TV. In the water, you have sharks left and right it is quite impressive. To thank the sharks for the show we feed them some fish.
On the way back to the hotel we got drenched by a fierce rain, i suppose it was a way to say goodbye as we were heading straight to the airport. Here is a aerial view of the our hotel.
La suite!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
33 Meters Down, Who Is Coming?
For those who don't know anything about scuba diving, you have to know that when your are a level 1 like me you are allowed to go at a maximum depth of 20m. In Tahiti this maximum depth is 25m because the water is very clear.
Barracudas
That restriction is huge because it is fairly easy to dive quite deep when you are in the blue, you just have to forget to check your dive meter and you will get a nice surprise 5 minutes later: there is no reference point in the blue. It is important to always keep an eye on your instructor because he/she will show you at which depth you should be.
For this dive we went quite deep because we were looking for hammerhead sharks, they are usually difficult to see because they swim near the ocean floor, we had to dive deep to increase our chances to see something. We slowly swam down and were greeted by gray sharks, 10 minutes later the silhouette of 1 hammerhead shark appeared. We slowly came closer as to not to disturb him but were not fast enough to fully enjoy the view. Once he was gone, i checked my depth meter, i was at 33.6 meters under see the level!
Napoleon
We slowly swam up to catch a tide that would make us drift inside the lagoon. Doing a drift dive is very fun but at the same time very tiring when you are not used to the exercise because you have to accept the idea that the flow will take you without you doing anything. Your first instinct will be to start swimming but doing this will get you tired thus you use more of your air supply. Anyhow it is a great feeling to be "floating" in the water enjoying the landscape that appears in front of your eyes. From time to time, you will have to avoid something, at some other time you will have to swim again the tide to not be separated from the group.
Remora
At the end of the drift drive, we ended up in a small aquarium full of small lagoon fishes, it was amazing, if you could you would take a piece of it and bring it back to your home. I am always using a lot of air during those kind of dive, my instructor waited till my air supply was totally empty to give me her emergency regulator so that the dive would last as long as possible, if not for her the dive would have been 10 minutes shorter.
I just love diving.
Surgeonfish
La suite!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
I Touched A Dolphin!
I am a lucky bastard
I had scheduled a dive right after my arrival on Rangiroa. We went to dive along the coral reef near the Tiputa Pass that you can see below
I was the less experienced of all the divers (only 15 dives) so I stayed close to the instructor. We went diving along a reef that was going slowly into the blue, when looking down one could see very far in the depth of the ocean.
You can find 2 kinds of totally different landscapes in this pass:
- on one side the reef offers a lot of small and medium sized fishes with many colors, morays that are hiding in holes, turtles which are eating the moss hidden below the dead coral.
- on the other you have the deep blue sea with swarms of fishes, sharks and dolphins.
Before my dive, i had been warned that there was a possibility to see some dolphins but i forgot all that as soon as i was underwater: I was to busy trying to miss as little as possible. I was swimming close to the instructor when we both saw 2 shades far away, with a few palm strokes we were close enough to see that we got lucky!
2 dolphins were swimming side by side, we all swam as fast as we could to miss as little as possible from the great show the dolphins were offering us, we all wanted to bring back a nice shot of them. All of a sudden, 3 other dolphins appeared behind the first 2 and 2 more appeared right behind us. We were all very excited and were looking everywhere.
At one point, 2 dolphins started swimming my way, as i was a little bit above them i started emptying the air in my lungs to go down without scaring them away. We ended up side by side long enough for me to put my hand on the back of one of them and let it slide till the tail. It felt like leather dipped in oil, it truly was a weird feeling.
Then the dolphins decided it was time for them to stop playing with us and started swimming too fast for us to follow. I hope that tomorrow's dive will be that nice.
La suite!
Atoll Ahead!
This week-end we are in Rangiroa, this island is the farthest one on the Tuamotu archipelago.
If everything goes well, we will spend 3 blissful days under the sun on a paradise island.
The plane did a stopover on the island of Fakarava and on the way from Fakarava to Rangiroa we flew over a big number of quite beautiful atolls. Enjoy!
La suite!
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