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Rapa Nui Day 1
Probably the latest breakfast that I have had on this trip, the dining room only opened at 8am and there was a limited variety of it. However, as I was the only human present, quite pleasant. I was kept company by a rooster and two hens so it was not exactly silent.
At 9am I was picked up and again did the rounds picking up a variety of others from Poland and Germany (with a German guide) and one Phillipino, 2 Brits and 6 US.
Ok, so before we get any further, let’s get a bit of information about Rapa Nui which comes from the locals.
1. It is officially named Rapa Nui as the locals arrived around 900AD whereas the Dutch named it Easter Island when they set foot in the 1700s.
2. There are approximately 700 mo’ai on the island. Only around 300 made it to their destination. The rest lie broken or incomplete around the island.
3. EVERY mo’ai that you see in photos upright were raised and repaired in the 60s. That’s the 1960s!
4. The mo’ai were only around from 1450-1600.
5. All of the mo’ai face towards the communities and therefore away from the ocean.
6. There are no written records from the time period, so everything about them is speculation.
Ok, so our first stop on the tour was a recreation of what the local communities would have looked like. The village would always have several huts with the base shaped like a ship’s hill, and the entrance facing towards to ocean and the mo’ai. There was also the local version of a chicken coop, built from the volcanic rocks with a secret entrance to it. This was because the only predators were other locals, although apparently rats did later enter the island and would cause problems. There were also smallish circular farm plots, to create a micro-climate, creating shade and allowing more rain to gather. When the locals arrived around 900AD they brought chickens, bananas, sugarcane and sweet potatoes with them. This and fish is what made up their diet. They also used the same cooking method as the Polynesians and several communal ovens were replicated.
From here we visited Akahanga where a number of mo’ai had been pulled down during the war between the long-ears and the short-ears and left as they are and then on to Tongariki, where in the 60s a group of Japanese had rebuilt and slightly repaired a group of 15 mo’ai. These ranged up to over 10m in height and well over 80t. They also had a red ‘topknot’ placed on them, made from a slightly different rock containing more iron. The mo’ai are carved from volcanic tuff with basalt and obsidian tools, and then ‘walked’ upright by a team of around 150 from 2-6km to where they were raised. Once at their final destination, those few that made it, white coral and obsidian pupils were added.
Within sight of Tongariki is Rano Raraku, the quarry for all of the mo’ai. They were carved from a volcanic caldera and then slid partially down the mountain to have the finer details carved into them. The ones that you see in the photos of just the head sticking out of the ground have about 6m underground. The largest mo’ai found is still embedded in the rock and was never completed. This one would have weighed well over 130t. On the north side of the caldera there are more carvings, but as a bush fire had gone through here last year, this was still not open.
We travelled to Te Pito Kura, where a ancient community had built a circular oracle, with a nicely carved oval rock in the centre. In doing one better than the Incas, this spot was said to be the belly-button of the universe. Not sure why a community that had sailed thousands of kilometres on a reed raft would then decide that this one particular spot on a remote, desolate island should be that point. However.
Our last stop today was Anakena, the place of the king, as it had a safe sandy beach and probably the best site for soil on the island. It is now the local beach and as the water was not too cold I managed to go for a swim. Attached to the beach are two small restaurants, catering mostly for tourists, and a group of locals trying to sell you anything they could.