More Moai Than We Could Count

Friday 5 January

It was a good job we had set the alarm this morning, as I think we would have slept through most of the morning – I hadn’t slept so well for a long time. Breakfast was in the dining room, down near the entrance by the sea. It was a large hall, on two levels, with lots of pale wood chairs and tables with bright red tablecloths and napkins. Many guests were finishing their meal by the time we arrived about 08.30. The choice was cereals, fruits – various melons, bananas in a sort of maple syrup and paw paw – processed cheese, sliced tinned ham, and muffins, either toasted or plain with honey and marmalade. There was of course, juices – orange, paw paw (I selected this at first as the orange was being refilled, and this was an orange colour, but I still don’t like paw paw) and a red tropical fruits – and tea and coffee.

We ate our fill, or rather Colin did and were ready in time to meet the minibus for our full day tour of the island, with the same lady and many of the same people as were on the tour yesterday. We were shown our route for the day on a small map, going along the south coast, half way up the east coast and back to the hotel through the centre of the island.

Our first stop, along with several other minibus loads of visitors, was at a large field at Hanga Te o Vailhu, where once a sizeable village had stood. There was a long “platform” Ahu close the sea, where overturned moai and pukao were scattered over quite a large area. The platform did not appear to be damaged, at least in the central section, and the small aperture where the ashes of the early kings or priests were interred could be clearly seen. Although these “shrines” are not roped off from the public there are plenty of signs asking you not to walk on the Ahu or in the sacred area directly in front of the platform – but of course, some people have to. One of the pukao was a considerable distance from the rest of the remains, and was in almost perfect condition, with lots of carvings around the outside. There must have been a very important moai here.

We moved on to Ahu Hanga Tetenga, further along the south coast, which appeared to be an even larger field. Here we saw a couple of the sorts of houses the peoples lived in. There are four main types of houses – a cave, a boat shaped construction, (the two we saw here), a brick and mud construction and a grass and mud hut (mainly for the servants and poorer people of the tribe). The cave was constructed with large boulders forming the roof over a hole dug out of the ground. To enter you had to go down a couple of steps and still duck your head – all houses were constructed this way, as they thought this stopped the spirits from entering the abode – they were very spiritual people in the past, with lots of Manu and Tabu governing their daily lives – Manu were the forces overseeing daily activities and the chief of the tribe would have the most Manu, while the Tabu were the prohibitions that protected the Manu – people not allowed to touch the king or priests, not allowed to enter certain religious places, or eat certain foods at specific times of the year. Inside the cave would only have been used for sleeping, or mothers nursing children.

Another house here was the remains of a “boat” house – a series of rocks laid down in the shape of a double prowed boat – pointed at both ends. In the rocks on the ground were round holes, which would have held poles to support the roof. These structures tended to be much smaller and would only have held a few people. There were remains of the Umu – the deep pits used for cooking – very similar to those used by the Maoris and Cook Islanders, both in the past and at feasts today. Here five stones formed the circle around the pit in which hot stones were placed in the base, with the food on top, and then covered by other hot stones and a cloth, before a final cover of earth that kept the heat in and cooked the food in about six hours.

From here we drove further up the coast to Ahu Tongariki, one of the only sites to have been restored. At the entrance to the field was a solitary moai standing guard, and this was the moai that had been sent to Japan for the exhibition. The path led down to a flat bottomed flood plain, where a massive Ahu had been built to hold fifteen moai, including the tallest standing figure, at over nine metres. This site had been restored with the help of money from Japan, and showed just how impressive these Ahus must have been when all the moai were standing. Each of the figures was a different size, shape and had different features. The restoration had collected all the stones and rocks and reconfigured them through scientific data recording according to ages of rock and styles. The Ahu had obviously been extended a few times to hold all these moai, and this must have been an important village in its time. Further up the field, away from the sea, there was another moai lying down, but when the excavations took place they found that this moai did not belong to the Ahu here, so it was left where it had fallen. It was a stunning sight looking out to sea, with the sun reflecting from behind the stones.

Our next stop was at the Rano Raraku Quarry where all the figures were carved. From the car park at the foot of the mountainside, we could see thirty, forty perhaps as many as fifty of these figures, some still attached to the bed rock – such as the largest moai on the island, completely carved on the front, but still attached at the back - and carving in various stages of production, to those standing on the lower slopes, awaiting transportation to a village. Most of these had now become immersed in the ground, some up to shoulder or neck height, due to the erosion of the surrounding ground over the centuries. But some excavations had dug down to find that the moai were complete and the bodies just covered by earth. Some fallen moai had been covered altogether by earth or sand, and were thus well preserved, such as the moai discovered by Thor Heyerdahl on the other side of the mountain, in a kneeling position, which was unearthed and now stands over the archeological site. We walked up the side of the mountain to see the moai that were incomplete, some tucked in behind other carvings, and followed the path to the volcano crater, 160 metres wide, where we could look down on a large lagoon, with reeds all round the outside. These reeds were important for building – roofing and mixed with mud to make a cement like mixture, as well as “string” to hold the raft poles, or handles of tools together – and for weaving carpets and clothes.

The present day people hold a “triathalon” here where competitors swim across the lagoon, run carrying 10 kgs of bananas round the crater, and finally canoe across the lagoon. We walked down another winding track to a picnic area, where we were served a hot lunch of chicken, rice and mixed vegetables – when we were told we would be having a “packed lunch” we thought of the various examples we had had so far on our trip, from the luxurious at the Kempinski in St Petersburg to the poor offerings in China, but this was our first “hot” package and it tasted good.

We were then back in the minibus to see a place where the ancient peoples went to get energy from their gods, but in fact there is no magnetic energy in the stone. It consisted of a large round boulder, with four smaller boulders quartering the stone. People sat on the small stones, leant forward and placed their arms and forehead on the stone to received the energy. Several of us had a go – one particular lady seemed quite spiritual and stayed there for a while, but I found the stones exceedingly hot in the afternoon sun, and felt the inside of my arms burning, in common with others – so my grasp at energy was short.

Our last stop of the day was at one of only two sandy beaches on the island – both small bays on either side of a large rocky peninsula. There were palm trees around the beach area, brought over from Tahiti some fifty years ago, when the moai at the back of the beach were being restored. While Colin went off taking photos of the bay and the moai, I joined several other on the trip for a dip in the ocean. There were only a few big waves breaking out more than waist deep, the remainder broke close to the shore and were full of sand, but it was great fun jumping up and down as the waves came in – as well as giving me a bit of exercise! We left after about an hour, to meander back to the hotel.

The sun here is much more intense than we have experienced anywhere else on the trip, and we were both very sunburnt when we returned – in fact positively glowing like a pair of red beacons – despite using Colin’s factor 50. After showering and blogging for a while we made our way to the fish restaurant for dinner, at the far end of the coast road. The shore is lined with black basalt rock, and there does not appear to be much of a tide. The waves continually thump in and out, causing great sprays of foam in many places along the road. It makes an interesting walk.

There were only a few people in the small restaurant at the far end of the bay when we arrived, but others soon came and the tables filled. It appears that most people come out to eat around 21.00, after the shops close. As with all meals here the obligatory bread (far better than we get in the hotel for breakfast) and tomato salsa arrived while we chose our food. Colin selected calamari piri piri with spaghetti while I chose a seafood platter with mussels, calarmari, octopus, prawns, scallops, picaroco (an Easter Island version of clams but with pincers), tomatoes and lots of garlic and butter. It was a bit like a stew spread out on a large rectangular plate. But it tasted fine. Colin soon found the chilli in his dish, but said he had eaten hotter at home. With a couple beers it was a relaxing evening, and we wandered home as the sun was setting – just before 22.00. There were still a few hardy people out surfing, catching the waves in the last of the evening light. No time to blog tonight as we are on another tour tomorrow morning – just time to catch up with my book.