I left this trip with some of the most amazing memories. It has been such an honor to go to Easter Island and Santiago for Spring Break of 2025, and while I surely cannot bring every single moment onto this post, I can certainly name a few!

Cuties

This is a dog I saw on the first day on the island. Lilly and I had gone to Pea Beach before then and had decided to grab some ice-cream after our swim. Thats when we saw that cute dog, rolled over on its back, basically begging anyone who passed by for belly rubs. I wish I went to go pet it, but I was unsure whether or not it had an owner, so I decided against it to be safe. But it made for some cute pictures! There were so many cute dogs on Easter Island, just roaming about.

As seen here, I fell in love with this irresistible little kitten named City. I was eating lunch with JoAnn and Lilly at the 3-way restaurant, when I saw her little tail behind the hand of a man having lunch with his friend at a nearby table. For the majority of the meal, I was eyeing her as she sat around on the man’s leg and attempted to jump to the floor (only to get too scared because of the height). Before leaving the restaurant, I approached the two gentlemen and asked if I could pet her. They agreed, hence the picture above. We got to chat for a while despite the language barrier, and it was such a pleasant interaction that I look back on fondly.

General Shenanigans

Featured in this video is Garret running down a hill on one of our tours of Easter Island. He said something along the lines of “taking the scenic route down” which I now wish I had done as well. But in the moment, I couldn’t help but think of the Rocky theme song as he was running down, which is why I edited this video to include the music.

Next up, here is Lily, Ben, Garret and I under a model of what houses would have looked like generations ago on Easter Island. It was really cool to crawl inside the small openings and just take a moment in a new perspective. I had taken another picture of this hut from the outside, which I have since edited to include a llama poking its head out of. This llama is one that we saw on a tour outside of the city of Santiago at a vineyard, here it is below!

Lastly, I had the pleasure of interviewing our tour guide in Santiago. I’ll let her speak for herself here.

Closing Remarks

I am so grateful to have gone on this trip to Chile. It’s given me the pleasure of meeting both new people at Mary Washington and people who live in Easter Island and Santiago, of whom I would’ve never met otherwise. I’ll never forget all the amazing times we had this Spring.