Easter Island guide

My wife, Mary, and I took a 35-day cruise on Holland America Line’s Statendam, embarking Nov. 17, ’05. This was a wonderful experience for us, even though we had traveled on many shorter cruises. The stops in Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Easter Island, Tahiti, Bora Bora, American Samoa and New Zealand all were excellent, but I want to provide information to ITN readers about one special guide we had on Easter Island.

ITN contributed to our finding this guide, Patricio Rojas (e-mail patricio@aotour.cl or visit www.aotour.cl); in the October ’05 issue, page 83, Margo Wilson recommended him. Because we have had excellent results from past recommendations in ITN, we e-mailed him requesting his services when we arrived on Dec. 5. We were not the only ones who saw Ms. Wilson’s letter; another reader, Dick Harvill, had requested his services, also by e-mail.

Patricio has an 8-passenger VW vehicle but takes only six or seven passengers. We had never met the Harvills nor the other two individuals in the vehicle, but all six of us had a superb 7-hour tour covering the entire island, making many stops to view Easter Island’s very unusual sights. The cost for this tour was $50 each plus $10 to enter the national parks.

RODNEY ANDERSON
Ft. Collins, CO