Taha Tai Easter Island

... the dirt &#8211; the result on warfare of bygone centuries. Out of 1000 statues, only 36 have been reconstructed and almost all of these don&#8217;t look like the traditional Easter Island head. In fact the only place you see the traditional Easter Island head is in the quarry &#8211; all the temple and sacred places have Easter Island people, not heads &#8211; heads with little chubby bodies and bright red 'top knots&#8217; (hats).<br><br>The island is a great ...

... to a take out from the little hut at the end of the road. As it was still raining we sat in the car at ate our food whilst waiting for the rain to stop. We then dropped our little car back and walked back to our room, finishing the evening with our routine games of cards. 30th April 2009 With everybody having trouble one way or another sleeping and not a lot on for the day, we had a nice lie in before getting up and ready for the day. I say day, but by the time we ...

... My theory is that these were ready-made Moai in the shop window of "Statues 'R' Us" waiting to be sold. There are many unfinished statues being carved from the rock at sites high on the side of the volcano - they don't seem to have worried about moving them down the mountain. The biggest unfinished statue is 21m long & would have weighed over 100 tons when finished. They were carved horizontally with the statue supported by a thin keel down its ...

... opened. At this point the Captain announced that he was going to anchor the ship approximately one mile from the shore and we would be tendering to the island, but we needed to take extra care as the tenders would really be moving about on the ocean waves. Having met with the rest of our group we then went ashore, this was quite an experience - people pay a lot of money in Disney for a ride similar to the one we experienced! Having got ashore we were then checked by the ...

... lay down the volcano slope to the seaside terrace where I hoped to find a coastal trail leading back to the village. There I experienced a curious optical illusion which I later thought was caused by my somewhat distracted state of mind. I saw a terrace from the summit which I was sure was right above the wave breaks. After getting over the crest of the terrace, I was disappointed to see yet another terrace at the same distance which I could swear was washed by ...

... campment and they explained o me that it was teh birthday of one of them which explained wy they had stacks of fish and meat stuck on a massive BBQ. Everyone could jsut go and serve themselve at the BBQ by cutting pieces of meat off the huge chunks n the BBQ. Spent most of the afternoon and early evening there talking about. When dusk was falling some fishermen going off to sea tried to get me to go fishing with them but comparing the size of the wave with the ...

... and the tidal wave in the 20th century. The moais were completely restored in 1996 thanks to the cooperation between Chilean and Japanese archaeologists, as well as the people of Easter Island. After that I head back ...

... interiors and bright 'courtyards' (formed by the collapse of the cave roof) where vegetables and fruits were grown.  After the tour, we went for a short walk around the little town of Hanga Roa, the only place on the island where people are allowed to live (the rest of the island is a national park). Only 5,000 people live here and they mostly depend on tourism for their income so the town is filled with little restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops that ...

... opportunity to go off road even though it didn´t take us past any sights. The first main sight was called the nursery as it is here the maoi were carved from the side of the volcano before being moved to other parts of the island. There were loads of maoi here of different sizes and at different stages of production. We also got to walk into the crater which also housed a lake like the previous days volcano. Only a few seconds drive away ...

... cooked and moist with chips and beer. Haute Cuisine - you can't beat it.<br><br>We took some photos as the sunset over the harbour and then headed back to the hotel - there are a lot of stray dogs around the island - like all of South America - and whilst none seemed aggressive we didn't want to be walking the coast road too late in the dark.<br><br>DAY 2<br><br>This was our full day tour - quite gruelling but we got to see everything - shame everything is ...