by Luan Xiang
EASTER ISLAND, Chile, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Lying in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Easter Island came into the limelight on Sunday as thousands of foreign tourists were flocking to the remote island, the best location on Earth to view a total solar eclipse.
According to Chile's National Tourism Administration, more than 4,000 foreign tourists and scientists had been arriving well before Sunday at the island, which has a local population of just 3,000, to choose their favored vantage spots to watch the astronomical wonder.
A group of Xinhua reporters, under an agreement with a Spanish expedition "Shelios," also camped at Ahu Akivi National Park on the Pacific coast of the island, where experts and amateurs from Asia, Europe, the Americas gathered to observe the astronomical marvel through telescopes, cameras, videocameras, waiting eagerly for the occurrence of the eclipse.
It rained the whole day on Saturday, but skies cleared over the island by midday Sunday. The amateurs sang, danced, played drums or guitar, or just lay on the grass, enjoying the tropical sun, while researchers, photographers, cameramen were intensely engaged in final preparations for their experiments and filming.
At 12:40 p.m. local time (1840 GMT), exclamations and applause burst from crowds of several thousands, as the Moon's shadow gradually crawled over from the lower left edge of the Sun.
"Ha! This time bitten from the bottom up!" a Spanish researcher jokingly cheered.
