Magnificent moai

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Its a 5 hour flight across the southern pacific from Santiago to Easter Island, the most isolated inhabited spot on earth, home to hundreds of mysterious Moai statues and the birdman cult.

On arrival at the airport (which has been upgraded to take emergency landings from the space shuttle but unfortunately was not needed whilst we were there!) we were met by Teresa our host from Cabañas Vianni with garlands of beautiful southern seas flowers from her farm and taken on a quick guided tour of “Hanga Roa” town.

We settled in to our sunny room and adjourned to the veranda to soak up some sun before strolling down to the shore to take in the sunset. And there he was, our first Moai. Sitting on the small bay with his back to the sea, made of one piece of volcanic rock and about 2m high. The first time you see one, your heart jumps (or mine did anyway). Its hard to believe that you are seeing these strange stone figures with your own eyes having seen them countless times on documentaries.

We have two main activities in mind for the 5 days we are here, going diving in some of the world's clearest water and going around the island visiting the Moai's and petroglyphs.

We choose to go diving the next morning and have a thoroughly enjoyable experience. We dove(dived?) ‘the pyramid’ and got to see trumpet fish, corals and lobster and a whole host of things. This is my first time since qualifying and I am glad to see that I am calmer than before though we have to come up a few minutes earlier than planned because in wonder, I have gulped all my air down!

That afternoon we take a taxi to the south of the island and arrange for it to pick us up from a point further along the coast later. We set off on foot to “Rano Raraku”, the quarry and it soon becomes clear that it is miles away. Luckily, we hitch a lift with a family very quickly and get there in half the time.

The quarry is the volcano from which all the Moai were carved. It is also the resting place of the unfinished Moai. Littered all over the site are heads sticking out from the rock waiting to be finished. It is an amazing place and totally defies description, look at the photos for an idea.

The next morning we go to breakfast and meet Jemima from London and all 3 of us join the local tourist board free walk around the sites nearest to Hanga Roa. In the afternoon we hire a car (yikes there is no insurance here so if you prang it you pay for it!) and head up to Orongo the biggest volcano on the island and site of the birdman cult.

The view from the crater rim is good enough, an amazing caldera 2km across. At the site itself are caves and petroglyphs from the birdman cult of the 18th century. Easter Island was discovered in 1722 with a second visit in 1774 and so makes a fascinating anthropological study of how societies develop in isolation.

Anyway, back to the birdman cult. The islanders needed a non territorial way to stimulate inter clan rivalry and since tossing the caber was out since they had deforested the entire island they came up with an annual ceremony based on a 3km swimming race to outlying islands to obtain the egg of a seabird and bring it back to shore. The winner was then named bird man for the next year and from what I can gather this enabled them to rule the island from a cave where they lived alone without washing. Dubious honour indeed!

Our next day is spent going around the island visiting the various sites of Moai and marvelling. The island itself reminds us of the Welsh mountains and coast with a few coconut groves thrown in for good measure! At the highest point you have a 360 degree view of the island and with nothing obscuring the view for 200km in any direction and you can see the curve of the earth on the horizon, its amazing just for that.

Over a bottle of wine that evening we agree that we will get up and drive to our favourite Moai site for sunrise….So at 5.45 the next morning we get up and get on the road for the 14km drive across the island to Ahu Tongariki. We can see the first light of dawn in the distance and make it in good time to see the sun come up over a platform of 14 amazing Moai. One of those things that will stay with me forever.

Jemima flying on to Tahiti that evening and we say goodbye over a sundowner. Five days makes for a relaxed tour of Easter Island. If you are thinking of going we would advise against joining one of the organised tours of the island as all the buses go to the same monuments at once and there can be tens of people there whereas we had the sites to ourselves.

Its also amazingly expensive to eat out - though we were entertained by the French owner at Le Pecheur one night whilst he worked his irony on a bunch of American college kids and Americans not understanding irony were blissfully unaware! Our guide book calls the service in his restaurant “unfriendly” we can only assume that the writer is a yank. We found him highly entertaining and his food delicious. What do people expect if they order one bottle of wine between 5 - I think service with a smile and a treat in gallic drawl to “drink slowly” is well deserved!

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Comments

[julie boolie]

enjoyed this blog.fascinating