When I say, “Rapa Nui,” people frown and go like “Eh?”
Then I reply, “Easter Island,” and they open wide their eyes with an “Aahh.”
“That island with the giant stone faces in the middle of nowhere, right?”
I smile and say “Yes.”
I always wanted to go there. Since I was a child and I dreamt about being an archeologist, I knew I would have visited it. So, years later, my studies (in Physics) were over and the excuses not to take that trip as well.
But this story is not about the giant faces that are (indeed) everywhere on the island, it is about the only spot that has none.
The Tere Vaka. The highest point of the island.
That morning I woke up, I prepared my sandwiches, put on my hiking shoes and left the hostel quite early. The island is small but I calculated that to get to the Tere Vaka, go up, come down, and go back to the village would have taken the whole day.
So I am there, walking on the edge of the only street that crosses Rapa Nui. I get to the point where an unpaved road leaves the street and starts to climb up. A man stops his car and asks me where I am going. “To the Tere Vaka,” I say.
“It is too far. If you want I can bring you to half of the path.” I accept the offer. He explains that even if the name the natives gave to the Island is Rapa Nui, in daily speaking they call it Henua, Island, in Rapa Nui language. We arrive at his destination. I get off the car, thank the man for the interesting conversation and hit the road again.
Everything around me is green. I can smell the sun, see the wind, and eat the sky with my eyes.
I do not remember if I met someone else on my way, but, when I reached the top, I was alone.
I am standing there. The wind does not stop to push my hair in front of my eyes. My eyes cannot stop staring at the view. Turning on myself, I can count the three volcanoes defining the three extremes of the island.
I can appreciate the curvature of the Earth just staring at the horizon.
Between me and the horizon there is only water and water and water, deep, immense, and blue. And I know that, beyond the horizon, there is still as much water as I can see, before reaching the coast of Chile.
I feel free. There is no past or future chaining me to any thought. I am just here, now. I am the “Here and Now”. Discovering loneliness as authentic and extreme form of freedom.