Day 10 - Rapa Nui

Rano Raraku, the quarry where all the moai statues were born

Slept like a log.  As requested, at 8:00 there’s a gentle wake-up knock at my door (no phones or TV in the room) so I can be ready for the all-day tour.  Breakfast is served on the terrace - omelet, the Peruvian/Chilean breakfast of champions evidently - and on the dot Kim’s significant other Hugo appears.  We do the rounds of the hotels, gathering up our cosmopolitan crew:  Americans, Italians, all sorts of Spanish speakers... Hugo does it all in Spanish and fluent English.

     First stop to buy a park pass for the island:  $60 U.S.  But bills must be pristine or they’re rejected.  It seems there were counterfeit bills a while ago, so if they’re torn or raggedy or written on they’re refused.  (It was the same in Peru, but I didn’t know why.)

      Then it’s on to Rano Raraku, the quarry from whence all the moai came, regardless of how far away they eventually stood.  (The topknots came from elsewhere.)  Hugo explains how the stones were cut, extracted, and shaped. It’s much the same as how the Inca cut stone from their quarries for their walls. But even if the two cultures didn’t communicate with each other, I guess there really aren’t multiple ways to perform such a feat using primitive tools.  As to how they were moved, that’s one of the island’s mysteries, although legend has it that they “walked”.

 
    After that we climb up into the crater of one of the island’s extinct volcanos to admire the lake inside the caldera.  A place of calm.  The reeds are totoro, the same as in Lake Titicaca.  This is a place of considerable beauty but few shade trees.  Hugo explains to us about a race held every year.  It involves young men making flotation devices out of the reeds, swimming across the crater, carrying hands of bananas up and down the slopes... but I forget the exact order.

       Then it’s on to Tonjariki, the first platform - or ahu - of moai we see, and the closest to the source, being just down below on the promontory. How they ever got them down here without breaking them I can’t imagine.  This ahu has the largest number together of the island:  15 in all, of different heights and only one with a topknot.  All were knocked down at one time, and the words “tidal wave” are pronounced.  But some were probably knocked over in fighting between the different clans on the island.  There is much supposition about everything on this island.  Much mystery.
       Back to town for lunch, and then off again for the North Shore.  First Papa Vaka with its petroglyphs, then Ahu Te Pito Kura on La Perouse Bay and its strange large rock that sets compasses wild.  Hugo says may be a meteorite.  I can well see the natives seeing this thing fly in from the heavens, leaving a flame-like trail, and thinking it was something the gods were giving them.  It has obviously been smoothed into its round shape - too smooth otherwise - with another orb at each of the four cardinal points.  I imagine tribal meetings being held here to make grave decisions.  But that’s just my imagination talking.

       Finally, on the beach at Anakena, Hugo explains more about the moai and ahu platform.  One of them, the one standing all alone, was set upright by Thor Heyerdahl and his crew in 1956; it took them nine days.  

       Then Hugo sets us loose for an hour, which I spend - as in my childhood -  searching for seashells along the water’s edge.  (The Pacific is still roiled up from yesterday’s rain, but I won’t know that by comparison until tomorrow.)  Shoes and socks off, I get my rolled-up pants wet hopping over waves as the tide comes in.  I end up triumphantly finding three tiny white barnacles and a piece of a bigger, darker shell.
       The rendez-vous point for the trip back is the snack bar and as I don’t have a watch, I get there early.  The passion fruit juice I order from a bilingual behind the bar, who calls me “honey”, doesn’t come, so Hugo sees to it.  From that moment on, I’m Honey to him for the rest of the tour, and he becomes Sweetie.
       Drop-off back in town and a homemade empanada from the shop down the street, which Kim’s desk replacement Jordi (from Barcelona) heats up for me.  I’ve kept up with the young people all day.  Now to bed.