Easter Island
by Richard
I’ve always wanted to come to the remotest inhabited island in the world and see the mystical statues which guard of the graves of the elders. After the dramatic landscapes of South America, I was prepared to be disappointed with the landscape, but was pleasantly surprised to find an island rich in colour and rugged beauty. From the lush green carpeted volcanic cones to the turquoise blue surf crashing against charcoal cliffs
map source: National Geographic Pacific Ocean Floor (1969)
3,540km West of Santiago de Chile, lies the volcanic island known as “Isla de Pascua” or “Rapa Nui” in the local Polynesian language. The Polynesians ventured East in their double hulled canoes from Taiwan, eventually colonising all of the Pacific including Easter Island around 400AD.
source: National Geographic Discovers of the Pacific (1974)
Dutch explorers discovered it on Easter Sunday in 1722, whence comes it’s English name.
The island is 166km2 and easily driven across in an hour. Although the airport can handle some pretty large LAN air planes, the little town of Hanga Roa is simple and has not been turned into a commercially over exploited tourist site.
There are a few expensive hotels and a lot of cheap home stays. We stayed with a nice family who were at the airport looking for guests. The restaurants and bars are nice and simple, not cheap but at the same time not extravagant.
We hired a car and set off across muddy rain drenched roads to explore the famous statues or Moai, which were carved out of rock in this quarry at the eastern end of the Island and then moved to different locations along the coast lines.
maoi heads in various stages of completion at the quarry
above: some of the older statues have a particularly weathered look.
above: a little bird rests on an ancient nose.
below: speaking of noses, can anyone see a resemblance with the Viveash nose and mouth. Hmmmm, the origins of the islanders are becoming clearer in my mind.
Just in case you got the impression that these moai were not very big. Here’s a little information for you.
The average height of a moai is 4m and the weight around 12 tons.
I am 1.77m height and weigh 78kg.
There are 850 of them on the island.
They transported them on tree trunk rollers.
Just along from the quarry is this impressive row of moais. Most of them look inwards to the island to guard over their people.
Some of them still wear a hat called a “top knot” worn by certain clan chiefs.
Naturally Kate found the stray dog which lives with these Moai, and we returned the following day with some food for the skinny girl.
Who could resist those eyes?
Plenty of beautiful horses on Easter Island too.
Now the story goes, that Maoi building, became somewhat of an obsession amongst the islanders, with stonemasons encouraged to make bigger and better statues to outdo the other clans. The trees were cut down to make rollers and eventually the island ran out of forests.
With declining natural resources and no wood left for boats with which to escape the island, a bitter civil war broke out amongst the short ears and the long ears clans who toppled each others statues over.
By the time Europeans discovered the island their culture was in a steep decline and then further decimated as the fit young men were enslaved and taken away to work in the mines of Bolivia, whilst European diseases affected the remaining population.
Happily, the island’s vegetation and population have recovered now making this a very worthwhile place to visit.
Do visit the two windows cave (Cueva de dos Ventanas) and take a torch!
above: the stunning 1.6km wide Rano Kau volcanic crater above the main town.
below: the island seen from coast to coast from the top of Rao Kau.
We also found the magical hill where cars are pulled backwards UP the hill by a mysterious magnetic force. See the video here on YouTube:
Tags: Chile, Easter Island, Moai, Rapa Nui