Day 24 : Easter Island–Tour of Cultural Sites in the Northeast and North

Sunday March 5^th, 2017:

The day dawned clear and very warm. Being a tree-less island there was little respite from the sun while we were touring sites today! We drove in a van with the windows open up the SE facing coast to the NE corner of the island. It was flat and very open, and mostly grazing land. It is fenced, sometimes with long sinuous stone walls, yet we saw very little stock.

There’s plenty of rock for stone fences!

First stop was Akahanga, half way along the SE coast. This is an unrestored ahu with many toppled moai. It was once a major settlement, and we saw the remains of traditional dwellings, or “boat houses”. It was impossible to get any idea of how they had looked, as all we could see were piles of broken rocks, and neatly shaped rocks with holes for inserting bamboo poles. Nearby was a cave under a hunk of volcanic rock that would have been used as a shelter by people of low rank. As it was already “occupied” by another tour group as a place to escape the sun while they had their lecture, we didn’t get to explore it!

Toppled moai at Akahanga Remains of a traditional “boathouse” Cave, with modern day inhabitants sheltering from the mid-day sun

There is very little wildlife on Easter Island! But at Akahanga we did see a small raptor – probably a Caracara – eyeing us off from a lichen covered volcanic outcrop.

One of the very few birds we saw on Easter Island – a Caracara

The awesome Ahu Tongariki is near the coast in the NE corner of the island with the extinct volcano Ranu Raraku as backdrop. This place is truly spacious, and the sheer size of the statues dwarf us humans! All moai were toppled in the huri mo’ai, and then a tsunami in 1960 swept the ahu inland. It has now been restored, and its 15 moai stand on the ahu, one with its top-knot installed. One moai with its pukao is enormous: 14 m tall, and weighs over 80 tonnes! At the site are several damaged pukao, i.e. top-knots, that have not been restored.

Spare pukao at Ahu Tongariki, with Ranu Raraku in the background A lone moai standing proud against the sky Approaching Ahu Tongariki The 15 moai standing proud on Ahu Tongariki – note the bird!

Ranu Raraku is more than an attractive backdrop for Ahu Tongariki: it is the site of the quarries where almost all the moai were carved, and many remain unfinished. The slopes below the cliffs are green with grass and the view is expansive, encompassing the ocean, farmlands and homestead, and the central volcanic cone. This is an incredibly beautiful place, and as awesome as Ahu Tongariki was, I found this even more so! The site has a wonderful, timeless feel.

On and from the slopes of Ranu Raraku

Moai were everywhere on the slopes of Ranu Raraku. Many have only their heads showing, and for a long time it was believed that is just what they were: heads. However, excavation revealed they have bodies buried below the ground, some adorned with carvings perhaps representative of Polynesian tattoos. Presumably burial is from centuries of erosion of the soft soil and rock from further up the slopes. (The volcanoes have been dormant for 150,000 years.) We had a long wander around the publicly accessible slope. I suspect we saw a small fraction of what is at Ranu Raraku, and no active archaeological diggings.

An abandoned, partially carved moai Buried bodies

We had lunch at Ranu Raraku. We were not impressed: the supplier was an hour late, what was delivered was barely edible even though we were starving, and we’d consumed the last of our water waiting! But at least we could wait in a picnic shelter, in the shade.

I I think I’m going to sneeze!

From Ahu Tongariki the road crosses the NE corner of Easter Island, past the volcanic cone of Poike on our right, to the north coast, along which Matu A introduced us to two sites. One was Ahu Te Pito Kura and featured a 10 m long, 80 tonne moai that has not yet been restored. He lies face down in the open ground, but was the tallest moai on Easter Island. Nearby is a smooth round stone known as the “navel of the world”. It is claimed to have healing powers, but is now off-limits because of past vandalism. Legend has it that it was brought here by the Chief who founded the first settlement. It looked different to the local volcanic rock, but then it may have been shaped and smoothed. But I certainly was not allowed to take a chip of it to see if it was mineralogically different!

The so-called “navel of the world”.

Our final stop for the day was Anakena, a bay with a white coral sand beach and two ahu, one of which had seven moai restored. Although I’d felt reasonable in the morning, the long period out in the hot sun and humidity had sapped my interest in antiquities and I was now much more interested in the grove of palm trees, the beach and a swim!

Anakena is the larger of Easter Island’s two beaches. The second and much smaller beach, Ovahe, is on the other side of Anakena’s eastern headland. Anakena was the place where the first settlement party landed, and later became a ceremonial centre. Now it is a very popular destination for locals and tourists alike, and it seemed many of the island’s population was either lounging on the beach or in the shade of the palms! 

Anakena: a beautiful grove of palm trees and a popular beach.

I did have a swim, and felt much better afterwards! I swam out to a line of buoys maybe 100 m off shore running right across the bay. I’d assumed it was a shark net, but there was nothing dangling below the line joining the buoys. So I assumed sharks were not a problem and enjoyed my swim! I was surprised that the water was slightly murky, and that it was not much warmer than we’ve experienced in Lower Sandy Bay at the height of summer. 

As this is a north-facing coastline, the seven moai on the Ahu Nao-Nao face south and hence their features were in shade. This made photographing them very difficult! Four had top-knots, and two were seriously eroded and broken. Nearby is Ahu Ature with a single moai. This was the first moai to be restored, by Thor Heyerdahl, who demonstrated that through the use of wood and ropes at least a moderate sized moai could be raised!

The seven moai on the Ahu Nao-Nao, four with pukao and two damaged 

The single moai on Ahu Ature, restored by Thor Heyerdahl.

We were back at the Altiplanico by late afternoon, but rather drained of energy. We felt we really couldn’t face one of their regular meals, but our lovely Rapa Nui waitress arranged for some fruit salad and yoghurt! And I added a pisco sour, Chile’s national drink - although Peru claims ownership, too. This is an alcoholic drink made from pisco and lime, and sometimes other fruits. I’d developed a taste for it; Krista couldn’t stand it!

And, of course, we watched another glorious sun set over the Pacific Ocean!