Ross: May is rainy season on Easter Island. We arrived full of excited energy, raring to go and explore the island's archaeology. Then it started raining. And it rained. And it rained and it did not stop. But we are British and had only a relatively small amount of time on the island and we were not about to let a bit of rain spoil our holiday! Or even a tropical downpour.
Cagged up, we ventured off to see the sights. Miserable and wet, we returned a few hours later.
Fortunately, the next day the sun came out and the weather was glorious. So in the middle of that day's adventures we went back to take the same pictures again - this time in the sunshine – making us wonder why we bothered to brave the driving rain after all.
On this day we first walked up Rano Kau volcano (to see the volcano but also) to see the 'Bird-men's Island' and the related petroglyphs. Every spring the men on Easter Island would try to swim out on a reed raft to 'Bird-men's Island' to capture the first egg of the season. The man who claimed the egg and returned with it would gain the sacred title of 'Bird-man', have his head shaved and have to live in a cave for a year!
At the top of the volcano were stone houses, where the competitors would remain while they watched for the arrival of the birds, and strange Bird-men symbols etched into the rocks.
En route we stopped into a cave once inhabitted by cannibals and saw more bird-men representations – this time painted on to the ceiling.
During the latter part of the day we went to see Ahu Akiv, the very first ahu (platform) built as a memorial to the legendary first seven men to ever arrive on Easter Island. The oral tradition tells that they were sent to sea to find a new land on which to live because their home was sinking. These seven moais are the only ones who face out to sea.
We then went to see the 'Pukao' quarry. You will see from our pictures that some of the moai have red 'hats' on them. No one is sure if they represent a hairstyle, a hat or a turban. But they are massive and were rolled for miles across the island to get them into their required places and then raised on to the top of the moais (statues)!
On our third day on Easter Island we first visited an unrestored platform with all the moai toppled over, face down. At one time all the ahus were in this state: a result of the civil war that waged on Easter Island once they had chopped down the last tree and could no longer use them to transport the statues. (Easter Island serves as an unheeded warning from a people who exhausted their natural resources and then destroyed each other). All around the island there is evidence of the day work stopped....
Karen: Our next stop was the quarry. This was the part of the island I was most excited about seeing and I couldn't stop running about between all the moais with a ridiculous grin on my face. Basically, as Ross said, when civil war broke out, work in the quarry appears to have stopped abruptly leaving around 400 moai in various states of completion. Some were finished and were left further down the hill on their way to the platforms by the sea. Of these, some have fallen over and some remain standing as if they were trying to walk there themselves as the legend has it. They have been buried over the years with some now only showing their heads. It was amazing to see so many moai in the quarry and incredible to think of the people who made them. It is thought that the 12 clans on the island were competing to build the biggest moai and that bigger and bigger ones were commissioned by the chieftans. There are a couple of really huge moai which were still being hewn out of the rock in the quarry when work stopped. The biggest measures 22.7 meters which would have been enormous if ever erected.
Just down from the quarry are some of the biggest restored moai. Perhaps due to that clan's proximity to the quarry, they have the most impressive collection. 15 have been restored with a couple more scattered around that are too badly damaged to move. We finished the tour at Anakena beach where legend has it King Hotu Matu first came ashore. It is a lovely beach with several restored moai. It was really surreal going for a swim in the crystal clear waters and looking back at moai on the beach.
Ross: On the last day we walked the 20 + km along the northwest coast back to town. It has no roads or even paths making it a very remote part of the island. I thought I was Indiana Jones and thrust myself into every cave (there are literally hundreds all over the island, many of which are still undiscovered and may contain stone sculptures, petroglyphs, rock art or human remains) I came across in the hope of finding one with something in it that had not yet been discovered. Each time I came out filthy and covered in spiders' webs having discovered nothing apart from, in one, a mysterious pile of bones. Because this part of the island is so remote we had private access to several unrestored platforms, we didn't see any other people all day until we returned to the village, just in time to take pictures of the moais at sunset.
We both found Easter Island to be one of the most enchanting and magical places we have ever been.
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