Easter Island - Days 1 & 2

Easter Island – Day One (14/05/2017)

The flight at 6 hours was long but fine.  I was rather disappointed to be served (late) breakfast rather than (early) lunch!  Another two films watched – Hidden Figures (AN ABSOLUTE MUST SEE!) and Music and Lyrics (as I fancied something easy to watch and Hugh Grant is incredibly easy to watch).  I think I watch more films in the air than I do on the ground!  Sadly I didn’t get a window seat but in the event it didn’t matter too much as it was rather overcast when we landed.  Hanga Roa airport is absolutely perfect – it looks like a thatched hut and nothing more!  It took ages for the bags to come through (I’m not sure the airport was ever built to cope with a Dreamliner full of people).  I’m sure the staff had their lunch break between the first batch of cases and the second…

I found my transfer without any problems and met a couple of English gentlemen on the bus.  They were dropped off at their hotel first, then I came to mine.  Once I got to my room I did a proper happy dance!  It's a very pretty little hotel.  Not plush (there’s not even a TV in the room!) but absolutely what you would want and expect (I’m sat out on the terrace in the sunshine writing this).  There’s only wifi in the reception area but that’s probably a good thing for me!

Freshened up and changed I went for a wander around Hanga Roa, the main (only!) town on the island.  I headed towards the coast where I saw my first moai then stopped for some food; my first empanadas in South America (shrimp, pineapple and cheese) and a juice made from a local fruit (no idea what!).  I got chatting to a guy who is a ranger for the national parks that make up most of the archaelogical sites on the island.  He offered to show me around some of the sites I wouldn’t get on my tour – it’s a shame but I thought I’d best be sensible and decline.

I walked along the coast for quite a while,  then came across a host of black flag, skull and crossbones, graffiti on corrugated iron.  Then I saw some flags bearing the name Hotel Pirata.  I’m still not 100% sure it’s actually a hotel.  It was rather intimidating.  So I turned around and came back.  I might venture that way again some other time!  So back the way I came, then into the town on my way back to the hotel via a shop for some water and snacks.  I also stopped at a wifi point to upload some photos and check what time sunset would be.

A quick change and out for the sunset, but sadly it was rather cloudy and nothing spectacular.  Hopefully a better one tomorrow.  I stopped on the way back to watch some of a local football match.  The pitch is just over the road from the sea, it was a rather evocative place to watch sport.  Having eaten quite late I didn’t feel the need for any dinner so, despite it only being 7:30pm I returned to the hotel.  I guess it’s the one thing I’m already missing from travel company – someone to go for a drink with – but I was actually more than happy to sit outside with a book (current reading is Little Women).

Easter Island – Day Two (15/05/2017)

Today was a full day excursion so I took a full backpack – swimsuit and towel, fleece, waterproof jacket!  The bus collected me around 9:20am and Julia was the guide.  The two English gentlemen I met on the airport transfer joined us along with a lady from Brazil and a family from Peru.  Julia did a great job of conducting the tour in both Spanish and English!

A little moai / Rapa Nui history.  Some believe that Easter Island was the last place on Earth that humans started to inhabit.  The first Polynesians came to the island around 9th century but it would have been the second wave who started to make moai around the 14th century.  Moai were raised on ahu (ceremonial platforms) and they marked the burial spots of the great tribal chiefs of the Rapa Nui (the native people of Easter Island).  They were almost all erected to face inland and were said to contain great protective power for their village.

However, by the time the Europeans discovered the island in the early 18th century the population was already depleted.  No-one really knows why.  It almost certainly was due to a lack of resources; the extinction of an indiginous palm tree depleted the fertility of the soil and also meant there was no wood to build canoes and fish.  A common theory is that the environmental change was caused by the obsession of building moai; others think it must have been a sudden but natural climatic change.  Either way, lack of food lead to warfare between the clans and the arrival of Europeans and their diseases (coupled with many Rapa Nui being traded as slaves in the 19th century) meant the Rapa Nui people almost completely died out – only around 100 native people remained in the mid 19th century – and with it died much of the knowledge and history of Easter Island and it’s people.  Eventually in 1888 the island was annexed by the Chilean government, although the Rapa Nui were not allowed out of Hanga Roa (much less off the island) until 1964 when they were given full citizenship

We were to travel along the south coast of Easter Island and then turn towards the north east corner before returning.  Our first two stops were Vaihu and Akahenga.  These are two sites of fallen moai.  By the mid 19th century every moai had been toppled, practically all of them face down.  There are a number of theories as to why.  The theory Julia explained is the common one; that rival tribes would throw down the moai to weaken their enemies.  I’ve seen another which hypothesises that the Rapa Nui were so ashamed of the destruction of their land and depletion of the people that they laid the moai down so they couldn’t see.  These figures were rather eerie in their submissive pose.  At Akahenga we could see the remains of the village, one of the largest.  The houses only had covered areas for sleeping and there was also a cave which would have been used overnight.  Julia told us some people today still feel the need to get out of the town and sleep in caves! She also explained that because they had so many people here they didn’t have the resources to build bigger or more moai.

Tongariki however was a small village with the largest ahu containing 15 moai.  These were all washed ashore by a tsunami in 1960 but a Japanese businessman sent two cranes to assist with restoring them to their correct positions.  Not only are there a lot assembled in one place, these are HUGE!  They are incredibly impressive and rather imposing.  They are also surprisingly expressive – they all stand proud and serene but the more you look the more you see differences between them, especially having so many lined up together.  Moai were carved in the likeness of the chief they were commemorating so they have different sizes of nose, chin, ears etc.  They no longer have eyes (which would have been made of coral and obsidian and were said to contain the moai’s power) but they still feel like they are surveying the area before them.  We were afforded plenty of time here but I really could have stayed for hours.  It suddenly occurred to me that I will most likely never be in this place again and I just wanted to enjoy it as much as possible despite a little rain.  Julia also showed us some petroglyphs – these would have been carved later, around the 19th century when the cult of the Birdman ceremony was practiced (more about this another day!)

Of course we had to move on and our next stop was Rano Raraku.  This was the quarry from which all moai were produced.  There were lots of finished but abandoned moai here – once they had been made it was the villages’ responsibility to then move the moai from the quarry to the village.  The common myth of them being transport in logs has been replaced by them by pulled to and fro by ropes and “walked” into place.  Indeed there are numerous other moai that have been abandoned as they fell over and the Rapa Nui had no way of returning them to an upright position.  There are also many unfinished moai, some out of the rock awaiting the back to be completed, some part carved and some just etched onto the rock surface.  The decline in the Rapa Nui people was so sudden it meant the quarrymen downed tools practically overnight and left hundreds of moai in varying stages of completion.  It’s like those hidden item puzzles where there are different images of moai all over the place – if you can spot them!  This includes the largest of all the moai which was never dug away from the ground – it took a while for me to work out the outline in the rock!

We had our lunch at Rano Raruku and continued to our final two stops.  First was Te Pito Kura.  This is the site of the last standing moai but it was brought down even after the Europeans had invaded.  There is also the “navel of the world”, a magnetic stone that legend stated had been brought with the original Polynesian settlers and was the only proof the Rapa Nui had of life in the outside world (it has since been proved to actually be from Easter Island!).  The final stop, Anakena, is believed to be where Hotu Matu’a, a Polynesian tribal chief first landed after embarking on a voyage inspired by a dream of the island.  It also has a beach and 8 moai.  I had a brief dip in the crystal blue Pacific waters with my English friends, then walked around snapping photos of the moai (7 on one platform and a lone one).  It was quite a view from the sea!

As the bus returned us to Hanga Roa and our hotels, I reflected on how the moai stand looking inland and how it makes me feel about the political situation in my increasingly insular homeland.  The large ahus of moai with their backs to the sea don't feel like they are guarding their people from the outside world.  They are not keeping people out.  They are keeping people in.  Their imposing nature almost feels like you shouldn’t pass them to the sea and whatever lies beyond.  The remoteness must have made many of the later generations feel like this was the only inhabited place in the universe.  I wonder if the politics of our future will be about trying to keep us where we are and not to strive for anything further than our own four walls.  Or maybe we are already there.

Back at the hotel I rested, changed and headed out to see a much better sunset.  I got chatting with an Argentinian lady about all sorts of random stuff (should I still have an opinion of Princess Diana?!  Interestingly there is a perception in Argentina that she was a poor school teacher before she married Prince Charles.)  I then saw the bar / restaurant next to my sunset spot had a fire going so it looked like a nice place for dinner.  We are out of season here so the town seems quiet but this is when it occurred to me that yesterday was Sunday and that would be why everywhere was closed!

I treated myself to my first pisco sour (lovely!) and some seared tuna (very nice although maybe a little tough).  Then a second cocktail, a kiwi caiparinha (delicious) and the recommended dessert, a chocolate volcano (yummy!).  Given how far things have to be imported Easter Island isn’t cheap though, I’m already dreading the credit card bill!

Back to the hotel for diary writing but I’m still out of the timezone and fell asleep at 9:30pm (ok, two cocktails probably didn't help!).  Woke again at 5:30am.  I hope the two hour time difference puts my body clock in the right place when I return to Santiago..