The heads

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What can I say? It was worth blowing the budget for - am so glad that Luna, Rob and Pran persuaded me to go with them.

It was much warmer than Santiago and more humid - great to be somewhere I could wear a t-shirt and shorts again. Hadn´t really been prepared for the cold in Chile or Bolivia - I don´t think I registered that it is early winter here so not that warm - oh well!!

The island is beautiful. Very chilled out and relaxing - just what we needed.

The scenery really reminded me of rural Ireland - the lush green fields, stone walls and just hearing the waves crashing on the shore - so peaceful. Quite a large percentage of the locals get around on horse back and there are loads of horses tied up in back gardens or by shops. It´s also low season here so hardly any tourists which makes it so much nicer - can appreciate the peace and quiet and the statues much more.

The heads/moais/stautues. Well - they were fantastic. Don´t really think I can describe them very well in order to do them justice. It was amazing seeing them all. It´s difficult to comprehend why a whole island would devote all their time to building these statues that would ultimately cause their own downfall. It took around 6 months or even up to a year to build and transport one statue. Apparently up to 30,000 trees were needed to transport one maoi. I think that´s correct. It´s easy to see how the island became deforested so quickly.

Nearly all of the maoi look in towards the island, not out to sea. They are supposed to look over the island and protect it. Must have been very frustrating and lonely for them being able to hear the sea and yet not see it for hundreds of years.

Lots of statues had either been toppled by other tribes or by the tsunami. And there were some ahu´s too - places where people were buried - sometimes under the wings (or sides of the maoi platforms) or sometimes even under the maois themselves (for the more important people).

The quarry was particularly amazing. Seeing the huge scale of the maois up close and seeing how they were actually carved was so interesting. The tribes carved the whole thing in the rock face leaving the back of the maoi attached to the rock til last. They were then transported up to 20km to the right place on the island. There were lots of heads in the quarry too, just sitting around in the hillside - unfinished.

In the evening we went to Orongo - another part of the island where there was the remains of a village only used for about a month each year. It was specifically built for the birdman competition. Men from each tribe would compete against each other to get and bring back the first egg from an island about 2km from the mainland. They had to climb down a cliff face, swim across to the island (avoiding sharks), find an egg, bring it back, climb back up the cliff face and hand it to their chief (or whoever they wanted to be birdman for the year - a pretty big honour). They would win if they got to the top first with the egg still intact - pretty hard competition. The village was there so the different tribes could stay there while the competition was going ahead. The outlook was amazing too - a volcano crater was situated next to the village. Absolutely stunning - full of water. Fish were introduced there about five years ago in order to eat the larvae of the mosquitos that carry dengue fever.

I couldnt´get over how beautiful the view was and how peaceful. We were the only people there and we were there as the sun was setting over the water. It was so magical seeing the sun going down in such a beautiful, breathtaking setting. I know I´m going on a bit, but the photos don´t really do it justice. Definitely wish I could have stayed on the island for a little bit longer, although I did feel like we had seen what the island had to offer in the short time we were there.

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