Saturn Thru A Telescope, Easter Island Statue
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
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94
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Trip End
Ongoing
La Serena,
Chile
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
We did the early morning Tur company bus from Santiago to La Serena. Exhausted, we slept the whole way there and lucky for that because they played a DVD of advertisements for sandwiches and the same "Mr Bean" short film marathon repeatedly for the whole journey. No soul complains about this, why not? We were given a happy meal box with biscuit, kid size Disney popper fruit box and lolly for lunch. Rude bus attendants again.
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The bus conductor let us off at the wrong town, in nearby Coquimbo and we had to catch a rip-off of a taxi into La Serena. Turns out Coquimbo is a real life pirate town and we should have just stayed there. Aaargh!
After dumping our bags, we did a mad dash in a taxi to the museo archeologico in town where we had heard they keep a Rapa Nui torso statue that was moved from Easter Island.
These large stone statues, or moai, for which Easter Island is world-famous, were carved during a relatively short and intense burst of creative and productive megalithic activity. A total of 887 monolithic stone statues have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections like this one in La Serena. Although often identified as "Easter Island heads", the statues are actually complete torsos, the figures kneeling on bended knees with their hands over their stomach. The period of time when the statues were produced remains disputed, with estimates ranging from 400 CE to 1500-1700 CE. Almost all (95%) moais were carved out of distinctive, compressed, easily worked volcanic ash found at a single site inside the extinct volcano Rano Raraku. The native islanders who carved them used only stone hand chisels, mainly basalt toki, which still lay in place all over the quarry. The volcanic stone the moai were carved from was first wetted to soften it before sculpting began, then again periodically during the process. While many teams worked on different statues at the same time, a single moai would take a team of five or six men approximately one year to complete. Each statue represents a deceased long-ear chief or important person, their body interred within platforms the moai stand upon
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. Only a quarter of the statues were installed with nearly half still remaining in the quarry at Rano Raraku and the rest elsewhere on the island, probably on their way to final locations. Moving the huge statues required a miro manga erua a Y shaped sledge with cross pieces, pulled with ropes made from the tough bark of the hau-hau tree, and tied fast around the statue's neck. Anywhere from 180 to 250 men were required for pulling, depending on the size of the moai. We made it 15 minutes before closing time so then raced around the museum pausing at shrunken heads, mummified bodies and dinosaur bones (very cool McGool) before coming upon the main attraction. I figured that once we have seen the torso, we would not have to fork out loads of cash to go to the island itself. We were well impressed by the stone and took photos of us with it to show the immense size of it.
Being the princess i can be, I was after some Lapiz Lazuli which is a gorgeous blue gem stone found in Chile and i found it at the artisans market in La Serena along with a large, raw chunk of the turquoise coloured malaquita and some fools gold for fun.. We have been told that we should have brought some Australian opals to trade with collectors here because they are very rare to come across and can fetch a high value, there is high demand.
Tonight we visited Observatorio Cerro Mamalluca near Vicuna town, it is one of the best tourist observatories in the world. This region of Chile is a popular area for building large telescopes because there is high mountains, little light pollution and there is clear skies for 300 days a year meaning you can observe stars in one of the clearest atmospheres in the world
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. The moon was bright and on the way to becoming full so it was more difficult to see stars but we were well impressed with what we saw through the telescopes and we got a great view of the moon and the craters. The moon is not made of cheese by the way and i am sure the man is still there. Failed to see a cow jump over it though. The tour guide had a wealth of astronomy information about planets, nebulas and constellations which he pointed out with a powerful green laser pointer. The observatory was tops with proper revolving lens telescopes and moving metal dome on the roof. We saw Saturn and the rings through the telescope which i was so wowed by that i am still in shock that we actually saw it, its so far away from Earth. I have given up on the idea that man first walking on the moon was a hoax filmed in a studio. Discussing the milky ways, galaxies and universe gives you a strange feeling when you remember the infinity and enormity of it all. The intelligent astronomer guide we had is adamant that there is life out there. In fact, astronomers have discovered a new planet five time larger than ours that could harbor water and life however it is a matter of distance and time because the new planet is so far away. The new "super-Earth" is called Gliese 581 C and was discovered on April 24, 2007.
I cannot help but think we should be looking after our planet Earth first. During a time when Nadine was distracted due to the large amount of scientific information, she started throwing rocks at me in the dark, turns out that she was throwing them at the wrong person and tried to melt into the darkness when she was discovered.
I will be well glad to drive myself around again, i miss my van and driving and am not a fan of being chauffeured around. I like to be in control of my own road antics.
