Hanging with my Moais in Rapa Nui

  Easter Island, Chile
Saturday, February 9, 2008

We arrived at around midday in Rapa Nui or Easter Island or even the Navel of the World as it is called.  Our first impression from the air was how underdeveloped it looked.

Easter Island from the air

After finally finding our transfer and being given our flowery leis we set of to the hotel. Two minutes later we were at our hotel, it was only about 200 metres from the airport, but with the weight of our bags we were thankful not to have walked as it was about 30 degrees.
 
The Hotel Manutara was fairly basic but comfortable and had a pool which is all we needed and with only about 28 hours left on the island we set off to find some transportation. Walking into Hanga Roa (the capital) we discussed the various modes of transport and their pros and cons. I was opting for scooters as they were cheaper, we had ridden them before and the island wasn't that big, Maud preferred the safety and comfort of a 4x4 (but maybe she was getting into the redneck monster truck thing), then what should drive past but a quad bike, so the decision was made for us.
 
After organizing the quad bike and having a 3 minute lesson we were sent off to go and explore the island without helmets - scary.

King of the road !

I had been given the lessons so was responsible for the A to B driving. Maud was responsible for reading the guidebook and giving us directions, plus the history of the sites (also reading the safety instructions of the "one person" quad bike which said that carrying a passenger was likely to cause death of both the riders !!).
 
We started on the South Shore of the Island taking in the first couple of sites being Ahu Hanga Te'e and Akahanga. These sites were an impressive start of what was to come as they showed the large size of the moai, it was just a shame that they had all been pushed over onto their faces after the fishermen and farmers had their own civil war. As Maud was explaining, basically the inhabitants in each tribe on the island were addicted to making and erecting these stone statues.

Ahu Akahanga

It got so competitive in the end that they had cut down nearly all of the trees on the island to roll the statues to the different sites. With all the trees on the island being used the fishermen had nothing to make/mend their boats with, plus the soil could no longer be farmed as the tree roots wouldn't hold the soil together and the land would erode very easily. The islanders were beginning to starve and realizing their errors started killing each other and also knocking down each others moais, what had once been their total focus in life had now become their downfall, plonkers !! 
 
The next site along the South shore was Rano Raraku, in effect the quarry from which all these moais were excavated from. This site was superb and a lot more notable than the first 2 sites. The site itself was a volcano crater but with numerous moai heads sprouting from its slopes in every direction you looked.

Rano Raraku

Some were buried so only their foreheads were showing, some had their eyes out of the ground, some fully excavated, all at bizarre angles to the ground, it was like being in a zombie movie and they were all rising out of the ground to surround you.  The finished moais had been placed in shallow pits until they were to be moved to their sites but overtime these pts had filled up and essentially buried the moais.
 
We walked around the site for about an hour, taking in these strange stone heads. We saw the largest recorded moai that was only partially carved out of the rock face and reportedly would have been to big to erect weighing about 40 tons.

Rano Raraku - inside the crater

We then tried to hike to the top of the volcano but couldn't due to the trail being closing halfway, which was probably a blessing in disguise as it was baking hot.
 
Next stop was Tongariki, probably the most famous and most photographed of sites, which consists of 15 moai statutes on the ceremonial plinth.

Ahu Tongariki

These imposing statues all lined up were an extraordinary sight and we took our time taking in the immensity of it all in until the heat & efforts of the day began taking their toll and we decided to head back to the hotel for a dip in the pool.
 
That night we decided to drive into town which was an event in itself with the lack of street lights and also the number of people driving without their lights on.

Tapati Rapa Nui

We were visiting the island during their 15 day festival known as Tapati Rapa Nui and that night there was some traditional singing and dancing going on as well as the presentation of the contestants that were taking part in the numerous competitions such as reed boat races and banana trunk sliding. Competitors were dressed rather scantily in thongs made of twine with little covering the nether regions, and paraded across the stage seemingly oblivious to their state of undress.
 
The best thing we found to eat that night were some cheese empanadas (deep fried cheese pasty) and after watching a bit more dancing we headed back to the hotel to get some rest before a busy following day.
 
The next morning after breakfast we set of for Morongo the village on the volcano crater that was situated on the ocean side of the airport. After a fairly long drive up to the top on dirt roads we reached the rim to see the Rano Kay crater filled with water and reeds and one side dropping into the ocean where the sea had been eroding the crater wall. It was an outstanding view and as we looked around the 360 degree panoramic what should we spot on the South shore but the QE2 coming into berth...incredible.
 
Orongo itself was a ceremonial village made up of stone houses between the rim of the crater the sea and some islands of the coast. It was a very important place to the Rapa Nui as it was the site of the yearly birdman competition. Basically each year when the manatura (sooty tern) came to nest on the islands off the coast of Orongo, each tribe of the Rapa Nui put forward a participant for the competition.

Moto Iti - the birdman competition islands

The participant had to scale down the jagged cliff, swim the 3km shark infested waters to the island then wait until they found the first egg laid by the manatura. They then had to return back to Orongo with the egg stuck in their headband. The winner was endowed the title of The Birdman (or his chief was) and had certain privileges for the following year for his tribe.

Having taken all this in it was back to the quad bike for the rest of the days sightseeing....looking cool as we hopped on and got ready to head back down the hill much to the envy of some Scottish tourists who had opted for the taxi tour.  However, our "aren't we cool" faces soon vanished when we couldn't get the bike into neutral to start it.  One of the waiting taxi drivers was obviously a pro at helping out stranded quad biking tourists and he hopped on and started bouncing the bike around the car park until it came out of first gear.  We got back on and the Scots (still chuckling) offered to pick us up if they founded us stranded at another site later in the day....

After heading back through the town to pick up some drinks for the rest of the day Maud decided that we should head onto the North Shore to see the rest of the moai sites and take in some caves that were formed from lava tubes.  So we set off on a reasonable road that soon deteriorated from tarmac to gravel to complete off-roading.  We stopped off at Hanga Kio'e which was just one maoi on his own then went onto the first set of caves.  The guide book had said that the opening was pretty hard to find and had it not been for a passing local pointing us in the right direction we might have been there all day trying to find the small entrance in all of the volcanic rocks lying around.  The entrance and about the first 50 metres were through a lava tube that was about 3ft in height - not so easy when you're 6ft 3.  We squeezed on through and the tube opened up into a big cave called "Dos Ventas" - two windows.

Dos Ventas caves

And indeed there were two windows or rather openings in the cliff side that dropped straight into the sea.  As Helen stepped into the daylight it was very amusing to see that all of the dust that the bike had kicked up had stuck to the sun cream on her face and with her head torch on she looked like she'd been down a coal mine !!  The lady was not amused so when we got out of the cave she had a wash in the water we had bought to drink.

So it was time to head on to the next caves which were a bit inland and supposedly bigger.  This time there was no sign of a helpful local so it took us about 1/2 an hour to find the entrance to the Te Pahu caves.  This set of caves was formed by a bigger lava tube- in most places about 8 - 10 ft high and almost 200m in length.  We wandered through the lava tube which used to be inhabited and in places there is plenty of natural light where the sun floods in through holes in the roof.

Te Pahu Caves

Once back outside we headed off to take in the last few sights.  Ahu A Kivi was the only set of statues that were erected facing out to sea but were quite inland.  The final couple of sites we wanted to visit were on the East Coast of the island so after another bumpy 20 minutes we were back on tarmac.  We headed along to Ahu Ature Huke - the first Moai to be re-erected in 1956 by Thor Heyerdahl (or rather by some locals he challenged to see if they could re-erect it) and then onto Ahu Nau Nau which had the beautiful palm tree lined Anakena beach behind them. 

Ahu Nau Nau

Once the last photos were taken we decided to have a dip to wash of all of the dust we were covered in.  We headed back to Hanga Roa to return the quad bike and discovered that everywhere closes from 1pm until 5. Not wanting to hang around for 2 hours with the keys we wrote them a note to say gracias for the hire and threw them through the gap in their garage doors !

After a relaxing dip in the hotel pool it was time to change and head to the airport for out flight to Tahiti and Maud's much anticipated few days of relaxing in our over water bungalow in Moorea (no doubt I'll be bored after a day of that !!)

It was great to see Easter Island but we were glad that we opted for the 36 hours there rather than a week - we're just not sure what you would do once you have seen all the moais.....