HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Everything
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of a single thing
WORD OF THE DAY: Volcano
I had set my alarm for 8am for shower and breakfast to be ready at 9.45am for my morning tour. As I got out of the shower I heard rain beating on the roof and I was thinking great, a crappy day for sightseeing, but by the time I got to breakfast the rain had stopped, the sun was breaking through and there was an amazing rainbow where you could actually see the end of it (no pot of gold) hitting the water. Now that I think about it I don’t think I have ever seen the end of a rainbow before. I see them as a sign of good-luck and I love seeing them on travel days, but I’ll take the good luck today for the tour instead.
To help in the two main things that will ctop ip today are moai (pronounced mo-ay) and Ahu.
Moai are large stone statues for which Easter Island is world-famous and were carved from 1100–1680 CE. A total of 887 monolithic stone statues have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections so far. Although often identified as "Easter Island heads", the statues are actually torsos, with most of them ending at the top of the thighs, although a small number of them are complete, with the figures kneeling on bent knees with their hands over their stomachs. Some upright moai have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils. Almost all (95%) moai were carved out of distinctive, compressed, easily worked solidified volcanic ash or tuff found at a single site inside the extinct volcano Rano Raraku.
Ahu are stone platforms. Varying greatly in layout, many were reworked during or after the huri mo'ai or statue–toppling era; many became ossuaries; one was dynamited open; and Ahu Tongariki was swept inland by a tsunami. Of the 313 known ahu, 125 carried moai—usually just one, probably because of the shortness of the moai period and transportation difficulties. Ahu Tongariki, one kilometer from Rano Raraku, had the most and tallest moai, 15 in total. Other notable ahu with moai are Ahu Akivi, restored in 1960 by William Mulloy, Nau Nau at Anakena and Tahai. Some moai may have been made from wood and were lost.
So with that in mind the tour bus arrived right on time and after a few more stops 30 minutes later we were on our way to our first stop, Vinapu. The tour was a bi-lingual tour, but there seemed an even number of Spanish/English speakers and Ellen seemed to be giving us the same amount of spiel for each of us and she was a very good guide. Ahu Vinapu is an archaeological site on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in Chilean Polynesia. The ceremonial center of Vinapu includes one of the larger ahu on Rapa Nui. The ahu exhibits extraordinary stonemasonry consisting of large, carefully fitted slabs of basalt. The American archaeologist, William Mulloy investigated the site in 1958. The stone wall faces towards sunrise at Winter Solstice. Vinapu is part of the Rapa Nui National Park, which UNESCO has declared a World Heritage Site. The moai’s all over the island are male, but here at Vinapu you can see what remains of a female moai. She no longer has her head, but you can see her breasts, naval and hands and is only one of 2 to ever been seen. The other is in a museum. The views over the south west of the island here were STUNNING. It was a little windy, but it didn’t have a chill to it and the sun had come out and was now high in the sky. This sight is most interesting from the perfect basalt wall where the ahu and moai once stood, but over the course of time and war they were pushed off their platforms and now lie face down on the ground.
From here we drove to Rano Kau with a scenic view stop where we could see both sides of the island. It really is paradise here and the view was magic. The volcano of Rano Kau was just another 3 minutes’ drive up the dirt packed road. Rano Kau is a 324m tall extinct volcano that forms the southwestern headland of Easter Island. It was formed of basaltic lava flows in the Pleistocene with its youngest rocks dated at between 150,000 and 210,000 years ago. Rano Kau has a crater lake which is one of the island's only three natural bodies of fresh water. Most of the volcano is on the coast and has been eroded back to form high sea cliffs which at one point have started to bite into the crater wall. On its northern side, the volcano slopes down to Mataveri International Airport. Rano Kau is in the world heritage site of Rapa Nui National Park and gives its name to one of the seven sections of the park. The principal archaeological site on Rano Kau is the ruined ceremonial village of Orongo which is located at the point where the sea cliff and inner crater wall converge. One ahu with several moai was recorded on the cliffs at Rano Kau in the 1880s, but had fallen to the beach by the time of the Routledge expedition in 1914. As well as basalt, it contains several other igneous rocks including obsidian (for which it was one of the major sources for the island's stoneworkers) and pumice. The crater is almost a mile across and has its own micro climate. Sheltered from the winds that dry most of the rest of the island, figs and vines flourish at Rano Kau. The inner slope was the site of the last toromiro tree in the wild until the specimen was chopped down for firewood in 1960. It truly was amazing up here. There was a young Chilean couple taking photos near me, so I offered to take one of the both of them and they in turn offered to take one of me (that’s how it works) and the Chilean guy told me to put my arms up in the air, like woo hoo, so I did and thanked them for the photo. I took so many pictures here and I know that they won’t do Rano Kau any justice, but it was just amazing and definitely got my WOW for the morning here.
We drove on for a further 10 minutes getting us to Orongo which is a stone village and ceremonial center at the southwestern tip of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The first half of the ceremonial village's 53 stone masonry houses were investigated and restored in 1974 by American archaeologist William Mulloy. In 1976 Mulloy assisted by Chilean archaeologists Claudio Cristino and Patricia Vargas completed the restoration of the whole complex which was subsequently investigated by Cristino in 1985 and 1995. ‘Orongo enjoys a dramatic location on the crater lip of Rano Kau at the point where a 250 meter sea cliff converges with the inner wall of the crater of Rano Kau. ‘Orongo now has World Heritage status as part of the Rapa Nui National Park.
Until the mid-nineteenth century, ‘Orongo was the center of the birdman cult, which hosted an annual race to bring the first Manutara (Sooty Tern) egg from the islet of Motu Nui to ‘Orongo. The site has numerous petroglyphs, mainly of tangata manu (birdmen). In the 1860s, most of the Rapa Nui islanders died of disease or were enslaved, and when the survivors were converted to Christianity, ‘Orongo fell into disuse. In 1868, the crew of HMS Topazere moved Hoa Hakananai'a from ‘Orongo. This unusual rare basalt moai is now in the British Museum. The site of ‘Orongo was included in the 1996 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund, and listed again four years later, in 2000. The threat was soil erosion, caused by rainfall and exacerbated by foot traffic. After 2000, the organization helped devise a site management plan with support from American Express, and in December 2009 more funding was announced for the construction of a sustainable visitor center which is now completed. As 90% of Easter Island is a national park, you are required to pay a national park entrance fee that is good for your entire stay in the island of 60USD. This was included in my package and was given the ticket when I arrived yesterday morning. It was validated here and after a quick look around the visitor center we then took a stroll around the paths provided. You are not allowed to stray off these paths and I think that is quite wise when you see the location of the village. It was located between the Rano Kau volcano wall and the steep cliffs of the end of the island and it made for some magic views. I bumped into Mt Chile again and he offered to take my photo again (yes with arms up) and we introduced ourselves officially me: Miss Australia and he and his girlfriend Mr. and Mrs. Chile. He also wanted to have his picture taken with me on his and my camera, a little random, but whatever and with a wave we said goodbye again for the second time. There was a cute golden dog (now known as Goldie) following us around the ancient village and he was cute as a button and obviously all the do not run and touch and climb the buildings don’t apply to the animals.
Our last stop for the morning was at Ana Kai Tangata. It is a cave that is located just south of Hanga Roa, not far from the runway of the international airport. There are paintings that decorate the walls of the cave. The name Ana Kai Tangata literally means "Man Eating Cave", however, this is just a direct translation, we may never know why the ancients have given it this name, but cannibalism has been talked about but no evidence of that has ever been found of that either. It was a pretty little spot with the waves crashing in at the caves entrance. We had to walk down around 40 steps to reach the cave and I am glad that I decided to wear my runners today. There is a lot of volcanic rock around including the steps are made from the stuff and it can be quite sharp. You could barely see many of the paintings but it was worth going down to take some photos.
From here we were dropped back into town or back to our respective hotels just after 1pm for lunch and then we were to be picked up again for the afternoon tour at 3pm. I decided to just head back to the hotel for lunch. I have all day on Saturday to go into town, and from what I have seen it isn’t that big, so I better save something to do. I haven’t mentioned the food at the hotel yet but it is delicious. It is really really expensive though. Yesterday I had a chicken mustard thing with taro chips and a coke and it cost me 40AUD. BLOODY HELL. The expense is the main meals don’t come with any sides, that is additional and the large taro chips were 14AUD!!!! The chicken meal for 18AUD wouldn’t be so bad if it had a side included. Well I was better prepared today, so for lunch I had a pepper steak with a small serve of chips (they looked the same size as yesterday but half the price) and a coke and it only cane to 28AUD. It’s still expensive, but beats 40AUD!!! Besides the meals I haven’t spent a dime, so I am not too worried about it, but man it’s expensive. I still had an hour till pick up time after lunch, so I loaded my morning’s photos onto my computer ready for uploading tonight and started today’s blog. No time like the present I say.
We had the same guide and driver for the afternoon tour and 50% of the morning people we back for the afternoon tour. We had 3 stops this afternoon and one of them was my first introduction to the moai (pronounced mo-ay) and I was so excited. This was one of my highlights to the Island.
Our first stop was Puna Pau which is a quarry in a small crater or cinder cone on the outskirts of Hanga Roa in the south west of Easter Island. Puna Pau also gives its name to one of the seven regions of the Rapa Nui National Park. Puna Pau was the sole source of the red scoria that the Rapanui used to carve the pukao (topknots) that they put on the heads of some of their iconic moai statues. The stone from Puna Pau was also used for a few non-standard moai including Tukuturi and also for some petroglyphs. There were some abandoned puna pau’s at the base of the grassy hill and then we got a chance to climb to the top of the hill and look into the small crater. There wasn’t that much to see but some more abandoned rocks, but was more impressive was how they moved these massive rocks from the quarry to the other sites of where the moai waited to have their topknots added to the statues. These ‘topknots’ are the size of a small golf cart, to give you an idea on the sheer weight of these things and like the Egyptians there are a lot of theories on how they moved the massive weight of them to start with and then how did they get these rocks onto the top of the moai which stood as tall as 15m. It was so gusty up here as well that you had to hang onto everything and be really careful as the wind would have literally blown you off the top if you weren’t taking care. It was like a wind tunnel up there!
From here we drove 15 minutes to what was the super highlight of the day and seeing a collective of moai. Ahu Akivi is an ahu with seven moai. The ahu and its moai were restored in 1960 by the American archaeologist William Mulloy and his Chilean colleague, Gonzalo Figueroa García-Huidobro. Mulloy's work on the Akivi-Vaiteka Complex was supported by the Fulbright Foundation and by grants from the University of Wyoming, the University of Chile and the International Fund for Monuments. Ahu Akivi also gives its name to one of the seven regions of the Rapa Nui National Park. The Moai face sunset during Spring and Autumn Equinox; and have their backs to the sunrise during Spring and Autumn Equinox.
Unlike other ahus, the Akivi-Vaiteka Complex is not located on the coast. In contrast to the monumental statuary at other sites on the island, the moai at Ahu Akivi face the ocean. As soon as we had stopped and I could see the moai from the bus I had my WOW for the second time that day. To see these statues in real life was AWESOME!!! You aren’t allowed to climb them and for the preservation you aren’t allowed on the first terrace of them either but in saying that you were still 15m away from this magnificent statues. It was a good thing I think as you didn’t have people all over them when you were taking your photos. They also had a path at the back of the statues so that you could get their pictures from behind with them looking at the ocean and it was just spell binding. I took around 50 pictures just here and each one is just so different. What a buzz!!!!!!!
Our last stop for the day was at Te Pahu which are caves not far from Ahu Akivi. It is one of the longest lava caves that can be walked in and extends for around 2km. A cave is a cave and it didn’t have any paintings or stalactites. These caves were used for locals to hide in/ live in and they grew plants in them for their survival, each cave growing something different so they knew where to get banana’s or taro’s from. The caves are in some parts inundated with water and were formed by lava flows. We spent about 40 minutes here and I did get some good photos from inside the cave. You just had to be careful as there were piles of rocks around and in some spots it was a little hard to see with no light.
So what an introduction to Easter Island. It was everything I expected and more. Tomorrow I have a full day tour and apparently every stop tomorrow we will see moai. In different states with some repaired, some not finished, some in disrepair but that is a great thing to see them in the different states. I just hope the weather will hold up again tomorrow. The bad weather doesn’t seem to hang around long with it literally blowing over the island. Ellen said they get 2 seasons in one day, all year round. Dinner was at the mega expensive hotel and I couldn’t help myself and had the chicken and prawn dish again. That is worth the 18AUD it is the chips or rice for 7AUD for a small that I find a little on the steep side. But another day passes with not a dime spent, so it makes it a little less painful paying those prices.
So goodnight from the jewel of the Pacific Ocean called Easter Island. I am enjoying my own company but miss sharing the WOW with some-one when you see something as amazing at the statues. I will just have to share them on Facebook and hope that the people that see them have the same reaction as me.
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