Greetings from Hanga Roa in Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Somewhere out in the South Pacific - 2,500 miles from Chile - 2,000 miles from Tahiti and 1200 miles from Pitcairn - the nearest inhabited island. The statues & the culture here have always fascinated me as it all seemed so mysterious. As it transpires there's not that much mystery to it - but the story of the island and its people is a sad one - which i wasn't expecting. I won't relay the whole story but the edited bits covering the period from 1805 to about 1960 will make you despair (although there is a happy ending)....

So, we'll start with the nice bits, shall we?

Easter Island is a 5 hour flight from Santiago - Lan Chile business class is a damn fine way to travel - the only downside being a distinct shortage of Champagne - 2 glasses (not even remotely full) & they'd run out.... - and in case you're wondering, all my internal flights throughout South America were in economy :-)

The audio selection is pretty good by airline standards & i was able to create a playlist from the cd's available - including, believe it or not, Cheap Trick - a bit of a blast from the past :-) and this helped make up for the parsimonious flight :-/.

Now, funsters, you may not have heard of Cheap Trick or may simply have dismissed them as a dreary US band from the late 70's / 80's with no redeeming features whatsoever - but let me enlighten you - if ever there was a band hell-bent on having a good time with a pocket full of fine songs that crack along at a merry pace (& a damn fine drummer,too) (not always a pre-requisite it's true - but just give 'em a listen) then they was this (or this was they) (or something) - advice to Carla:

Arrive at office on Monday morning - feel glum - turn on computer - go to YouTube - select Cheap Trick - select "i want you to want me" followed by "surrender" followed by "ain't that a shame" (choose the live versions) - turn up the volume - dance on the desk (or desks) - feel chirpy again :-) - listening to them might just brighten your day, too, Mr B....

Go on - you can trust me - I'm a Shaman :-))

Anyway, Easter Island is very pretty - surrounded by a sparkling, bright blue Pacific Ocean with blue sky & a fierce old sun to complete the idyllic picture. Outside the town it is very green with hills & valleys galore - plus the one fine beach - oh and the spooky statues staring vacantly at the sky.... - of course, the odd Pisco Sour enhances things somewhat....

There are quite a lot of trees planted now - and thanks to Thor Heyerdahl* a native tree has been saved from extinction - there are 3 planted in the garden of the Hotel Otai, where i'm staying - sadly a lot of Eucalypts have also been planted, which has naturally upset a lot of people here (they shed bark which acidifies the soil & they suck up water like billy-oh)....

*Nowadays Norwegians no longer have to come here by raft - in 1998 the law was changed to allow them to fly here....

It seems the original settlers came here from either the Marquesas Islands or Mangareva somewhere between 400 - 600 AD. The Marquesas are a group of 12 islands about 875 miles from Tahiti and are part of French Polynesia. Mangarevia is the largest & most populated island of the 14 Gambier Islands - again, part of French Polynesia and about 1,000 miles from Tahiti. The settlers appear to have brought tools, food, plants & animals when they came to Rapa Nui - so they must have known what to expect. The island is 171 sq.km. - (66 sq. miles) so not very big but it did have a forest of Palm Trees - as well as other trees - and craters held drinking water - fed by underground springs. Obsidian was available for making tools & weapons. Once settled, the people spread across the island but they resorted to slash & burn farming methods in order to clear land to plant crops & graze animals. Once the forest cover had gone then soil erosion set in and - just to compound things - having knocked down or burnt all the trees they couldn't then make canoes to go fishing or - er - escape.....

The settlers built houses of stone - being a volcanic island there was (& still is) plenty of rock for building and for carving the statues (moai) that we know about today. The settlers were good at reading the stars, too, and used a magnetic stone they had brought with them to help create a calendar and determine equinoxes. Given that the magnetic stone - which can still be seen - is not native you'd think it might be possible to work out where that came from. It's quite a big old piece of rock, too - so the craft bringing it couldn't have been that flimsy.

The moai stand on platforms (ahu) - which are essentially graves - the ahu contain bones and each moai represents a chief who had died. The society was divided into clans (mata) and the island split between east & west. The original king claiming the west for him & his immediate clans and the east was given to other, lesser clans. The moai were carved by craftsmen who were prized for their skills. How the moai were moved from the central quarry is a matter of conjecture - either "walked" on flint stones with the aid of ropes or rolled on tree trunks, again with the aid of ropes - no one knows for sure (and by ropes i don't mean South Africans, clearly).

The moai were carved from the soft porous rock taken from the volcanic cone - which is one reason why they are in such a bad state today - erosion & lichen have taken their toll. The eyes were made from coral with stone inset to represent the pupils. The top knots (pukao) - which may have represented head-dresses - were made from the much harder red scoria. One pukao is 2m in diameter & weighs 11.5 tons - so how they got the pukao onto the head of the moai is also a mystery...

Today there are about 360 moai visible - varying between 2m and 9m in height. The moai were arranged on ahu (as mentioned) - the longest ahu being 60m with 15 moai standing on it. This is probably the most photographed group of moai as they were restored to their vertical positions - one even has its pukao in place - in 1996 by a Japanese consortium in conjunction with the government....

In total there were about 800 to 1,000 moai built - many are still either buried or with only their heads visible above ground at the quarry. Indeed you can still see the largest moai ever carved- it is 20m long and estimated to weigh 270 tons - it wasn't finished and so is still horizontal in the quarry not fully carved out - one suspects they abandoned it when they realised they had no means of moving it or erecting it. By the way - this type of statue can be found in the Austral Islands as well as Tahiti (although i didn't see any when i was there- i wonder if Nicola did?) and the Marquesas - so they aren't unique to Easter Island.

When Capt. Cook arrived in 1774 he found only one moai standing - this was later found toppled in 1786 when the next European vessel arrived - so what happened?

Well - the population grew to an estimated 7,000 people- which is a lot for a small, isolated island (today it's around 4,500). The people finally realised they had destroyed the forests in order to build the moai and to support their slash & burn farming. It dawned on them that this meant no more canoes to go fishing or escape to another island. The soil was being eroded by the wind and the rain and so crop yields were lower - making it even more difficult to support the burgeoning population.

A warrior class emerged - and with the resulting internecine fighting - villages were destroyed and the moai toppled. A new religion emerged based on a creator god called MakeMake and a bird-man cult established. Each year there was a contest between the clans - the chief of the clan whose team was the first to acquire the first bird's egg of the season became island leader for that year.

As things appeared to have calmed down and some kind of order and harmony restored - then life should have been ok for the Easter Islanders - shouldn't it? And in fairness to the first European visitors - they came for supplies and left well alone. Jacob Roggeveeen a Dutch explorer was the first European to visit the island - which he did on Easter Sunday in 1722 - hence the name. Don Felipe Gonzalez landed in 1770 and claimed the island for Spain - but didn't stay. In 1774 Captain Cook arrived and then Comte de la Perouse in 1786.

No - what did it for the islanders follows next :-/

In 1805 whaling ships started calling in at the island and kidnapping people to work on the boats. In 1862, 8 ships from Peru captured 1400 islanders (about 30% of the population) and took them back to Peru. Those that didn't die on the voyage died soon after landing. There was a public outcry and the Peruvian government outlawed the kidnapping or enslavement of the Easter Islanders. Sadly the kidnapping did not stop then - more were kidnapped and taken to Peru. The government ordered that these people should be sent back to Easter Island. And so 470 islanders were packed onto a vessel designed to accommodate 160 - by the time the vessel reached Rapa Nui only 15 were left alive - and they all had smallpox. Released into the community, these 15 souls infected the population - which was soon decimated by the smallpox virus.....

The years 1860 to 1877 brought more hardship as a truly villainous French naval officer, Dutrou Bornier, effectively took over the island - the islanders were restricted to Hanga Roa - the town on the island - whilst the rest of the island became the Frenchman's fiefdom. A well-meaning French mission tried to assist the islanders but without success. In 1888 Chile took control over the island - the 12 leaders who signed away their sovereignty must have naively assumed the Chileans would treat them fairly. No such luck. Control of & responsibility for Easter Island was given to the Chilean Navy who treated the island & the islanders with contempt. A visiting English lady - Katherine Routledge - witnessed an uprising in 1914 and was impressed by the way the islanders behaved and conducted the uprising - after all, they just wanted decent living conditions and their island back......

From 1860 to around 1950, Easter Island was effectively just a ranch - with the islanders penned in the town - living conditions in the town were poor and life fairly grim - many islanders accepted inducements to leave to Chile or to Tahiti.....

See www.islandheritage.org/eihistory.html - for a much more complete history.

Life did not start to improve until 1967 when piped running water was made available and in 1970 electricity was introduced. Today the islanders own the land - no one from outside can own land - there seems to be a degree of harmony & prosperity. Life is still not exactly easy as so much has to be imported - and just to make life interesting there's no natural deep-water harbour. Ocean going craft anchor out at sea & Zodiacs (or their equivalent) go out to collect goods from the ships. It must be a nightmare unloading cars or building material.

There is an independence movement - but as Sabina said - what use is independence? How could such a small, remote island survive independently? They would like more autonomy but generally regard Chile (now) as a benign state- certainly there is investment now.

So there is a happy ending :-)

My guide - the fabulous Sabina (she even loved the "what do you call a fish with no eyes" joke) (well, when i say "loved"...) was a font of knowledge & passionate about the island; its heritage; traditions and culture - so if you come here, book Rapa Nui Travel - www.rapanuitravel.com - and see if you can get Sabina to guide you :-)

Do not come here for more than 3 or 4 nights, though - unless you're the sort that can switch their brain into stand-by mode. It's not that Hanga Roa is a one-horse town - it isn't - there are lots of horses roaming the streets and country lanes - which can make walking and driving interesting - but once you've done the tours (2 days) then that's pretty much it. I have been exceptionally lucky here, though - not only did i have the wonderful Sabina as a guide i also met the equally wonderful & lovely Nicola - a fabulous English girl who is nearing the end of her travels - having been to Ecuador, Peru; Bolivia; Chile - and now Easter Island - as i write she is flying back to Chile for a few days & then back to England - well, Cambridgeshire (the hilly bit) :-)

Nicola is the epitome of the classic English lady - always in total control - always calm (patient & long suffering) (ha!) - frighteningly capable - extremely funny - supremely intelligent with a never ending store of fine tales and just brilliant company - safe journey home Nicola!

I still haven't written much about Santiago and i fly to New Zealand tomorrow.....