This story has to start at the Punta Arenas Airport. The southernmost city in Chile has all of 3 gates but the airport is, akin to Punta Areanas itself, flush and posh. The main airport serving the mega touristy Torres del Paine, Patagonian oil fileds, loaded and landed gentry of Tierra del Fuego and environs… Punta is also the airport from which the only commercial flight leaves for the Falkland Islands. Flights to Antarctica leave from here… It’s the hub. With 3 gates. It was my 6th and last time there. I was walking around looking at the overpriced tchatchki and flash-backing to all my adventures around Punta and the trips out of here… I had just landed here from the Chilean Navy base in Antarctica the previous day and now, I was going to a place I wanted to visit for a good 40 years – well before I knew that the island belonged to Chile or its exact location.
I noticed that some of the Greetings from Chile items in the overpriced tchatchki Store contained the giant moai heads. Likely based on no specific moai but more on what a Chilean person who’s never been to Easter Island imagines them to look like.
Oh probably worth mentioning that my cabby to the Airport was this young slightly psycho Croatian who drove 130 km/hour in 60 km/hr zone and 40 km/hour zone. Oh my crazy homies!
Flight to Santiago was over 3 hours (jeez I had driven a long way back in the days of traversing Chile in my truck the Hank). I landed in Santiago at 11:30 pm delighted that flights from and to Santiago go all night long. Not because I care about air traffic but because that meant that everything in the airport was open. My flight was leaving at 6 am so I had some time to kill. And how better to kill time than snacking on shit you don’t even want. Well, I take that back: I can snack on cassava (aka taro) and plaintain chips any time. So I did. In the same lil market, I also bought a bottle of bubbly water. I walked around the airport looking for a place to park. Finding no convenient nook (I could not check in and be at a gate), I found a lil restaurant with a giant terrace and parked my now super heavy suitcase there. While driving around the country, I never had all my stuff packed in the suitcase. My shoes, jackets, hats, rain gear… would often be inside the car. My “caja de alimentacion” (nutrition box) would be taken out and brought back in with a coffee maker carefully lodged in the middle… In short, my suitcase was never full. Once I got to Punta, I always stayed in the same hotel – Plaza. And the megacool 2 people who work there and who became really good friends always stashed a bunch of my stuff away when I would leave for Argentina or for the Falklands or for Antarctica. Well, this time, everything had to be inside the suitcase. Including all the crap I bought to wear in the deep south… The poor gray suitcase was literally bursting at the seams…
Sure, I had discarded a ton of stuff – books, maps, worn out pants… but still. The suitcase looked like it was suffering from a major toothache.
BTW, total digression: did I tell you of the time I climbed to the top of a volcano crater and the only way to get down the impossibly loose scree was on my butt. I happened to be wearing Athleta pants and that lycra tore on the butt entirely so I had to go around the few people I saw on my way back to my truck the Hank like the moon orbits the earth. No pun intended.
Mooning aside, let’s continue our story.
So here I am sitting at a table on a terrace of a restaurant on the Santiago Airport, 3 am. A super drunk Chilean hippie is talking to various folks at the tables around but the only one that is paying any attention to him is a Chinese guy who speaks almost no English and only 3 words in Spanish. Caliente being one of them. Some comic-book like interactions ensue.
On the other side of me, 6 well dressed Santiago urbanite ladies, who probably have seen every episode of Sex and the City many times and recently, chat in an animated fashion. One lady is now basically monologuing as the others are starting to show the signs of fatigue tho still trying to appear perky.
Anywho, at 4:30, the SAmanthas have caught their flight to a cheesey sea-side resort of La Serena and the drunk hippie has exhausted the Chinese guy who is now just talking Chinese and he too is now plastered. The 2 of them have turned to the Dark Side. I would bet that a fight was about to break out but I had to go downstairs and idly stand in line to check in. Until 5:15. Checking into a flight to Easter Island or Isla Pasqua or Rapa Nui, depending who you talk to, is like checking into an international flight but the passport and customs clearance is on a separate floor from the in international or domestic flights. You reach it by walking an endless labyrinth of Kafka’esque hallways. They stamp your passport. They review the application for entry which contains some scary number of questions. Your bag goes through all kinds of checks. Every step of this ridiculous checkin procedure, by the Chilean law, has to involve native Rapa Nui folks. They are more figure heads than engaged officials but the law is the law. All has to do with the relative autonomy Rapa Nui now enjoys.
The Trial over, I am waiting in line at the gate to get in, dead tired and sleepy, surrounded by a mass of Chinese tourists. Large tour groups of very sophisticated looking Chinese. I actually thought that perhaps they were all Taiwanese (not to be totally racist but from my travel experience, usually the Taiwanese would be more worldly, better English, better at casual wear and quieter in demeanor and interactions) but no, these guys all spoke Mandarin and a lot of them had that universal academic air to them.
The plane was a large airbus and it was full to the last seat.
I fell asleep before we even started down the runway and woke up as we landed 5.5 hours later.
My giant suitcase was waiting for me as I made my way through the crowd and through the checkpoint. While getting through, I was getting teary eyed listening to the Polynesian music being played acoustically by 3 musicians. Just like the Papeete airport! Neato!
Swarm of signs from the local guest houses but none read Mana Nui Cabañas. Not even anything similar… For 2000 ($3) I could get a cab and go there (I remember the map, the place is close. But then I heard these 4 Chinese folks who kept saying Mana Nui over and over so I figure, well there is 5 of us.
Our lady Vicky finally pulls in in a banged-up van. Middle-aged, Polynesian and proud, she walks over, plops flower wreaths on our necks and marches us to her car. She reminds me of Loyna from the Pension Loyna on Rangiroa both physically and in her awesome attitude of a matriarch/alpha female/no-nonsense Polynesian woman. I am up front and she and I hit it off instantly. I know a handful of Polynesian words (same as on Tahiti) and I speak Spanish hence I serve as her interpreter to the Chinese who speak 0 Spanish and rudimentary English. I am good at speaking English veeeeeeerrrrrrryyyyy sssssllllllloooooooowwwwwlllllyyyy. So we all get along splendidly.
I had been a slamming good tourist and bought my National Park pass as soon as I got off the plane. The Chinese did not have my ninja skillz so we had to stop at some office in the village of Hanga Roa (the only village on the island) so they can get their $90-a-pop passes.(the office was a multi-faceted establishment that sold souvenirs, copied keys, rented cars, a moped and 2 bikes… also made photocopies and passport photos)
The National Park pass lets you into all the archeological sites for 10 days, some sites you can visit many times and some only once. Yup you guessed it, I will break the rule of “only visit once”. Proudly.
OK, so while the Chinese are buying their passes, Vicky and I are haggling with a fruit vendor for 2 pineapples. Vicky had pretty much ordered me to buy them assuring me that they are rare. I can now confirm: she was right. And she was also right that they would be super sweet and delish.
In the process, I loaded up on other produce: sweet potatoes, taro, tomatoes, yams, onion… because Vicky had just confirmed that yes, I have my own kitchen!!!!
So I went nutz.
Vicky’s place is just up a hill from the archeological site called Tahai where you can not only see multiple archelological findings, including a row of 4 moai, 2 single moai, traditional dwellings, trad chicken coops, trad land-filled port… but you also get to watch the best sunset on the island: sun setting behind the giant heads.
Just like its boss lady, the Mana Nui compound also resembles Pension Loyna. As do the rooms and the flower arrangements on the bed and table. Hibiscus.Tiaré. Random leaves. Purty!
I drop my luggage in the fragrant room. Take a peak into the kitchen. Stick my head into the freezer to cool off and head out to the “reception” – part of Vicky’s living room partitioned off with some wood carvings. There I meet Patricia who, I later discover, is Vicky’s daughter. Super eloquent (Spanish) and pretty darn cool, Patricia gives me the lay of the island. Where is which archeological site. How I can get around where (walk, bike, car). Gives me the skinny on the Rapa Nui music & dance performances days and times. Advises me where I an get what. And then hooks me up with her uncle who is “the best guide on the island”. I had been told that I should get a guide for one or one half day so as to get a general idea of the island and the Rapa Nui history. We call the uncle and he agrees to give me a private tour for $60. I have by now understood that everything on the island costs more than on the mainland. Also, I have some pesos that are burning a hole in my pocket so I agree.
The uncle and his banged-up van were in the Mana Nui garden before I could say Maururu. Or Iaorana.
The history of the island, the uncle started as soon as he backed his rattly vehicle out of Vicky’s driveway, started when king Hotu moved his people to the island. His people were just like the moai: tall, high cheek bones, slender, and they all had big earings in their ears. So they were called long ears – Orejas Largas. They were not Polynesian and they came from Hiva.
Oh, Hiva Oa, Marquesas. French Polynesia?
No, noone knows where Hiva is.
(note from yours truly: yes, one of the theories is that the migration to the island happened from the Marquesas)
OK!
Yes, and they had slaves who were shorter and stockier. It is thought that they were Polynesian. They did not have earrings and were called Short Ears. Orejas Cortas. Orejas Cortas did all the work including making of the moai. And the Long Ears were rulers. Then in the 19th century the Short Ears rebelled and toppled all the moai. Also there was a lot of mixing of the 2 ears. And that’s how you get Rapa Nui people today.
Oh OK.
(note from yours truly: none of this is true; I checked)
My tour guide continued his fairy tales which had a high narrative but 0 historic value. It reminded me of that Antonio Benigni movie in which he studies Chinese for 4 years in intensive classes with an Italian teacher. he later discovers that, even tho he fluently discussed philosophy and politics in the language he was learning, the language was all invented by the teacher who was a psychopathic serial killer.
OK so uncle guide was no psycho or serial killer that I could tell. But he sure knew about Rapa Nui history as much as my cat Clio.
We drove to the North East end of the island stopping at a rock that was allegedly used in tribal ceremonies in the way that they use conch in other Polynesian islands. “It is because there are no conches here in this part of the Pacific”
(note from yours truly: there are but the ocean around the island has been severely fished out)
We also checked out these piles of rocks that had a little hidden room in the middle. Apparently, the Polynesians guarded their chickens in these little rock prisons.
“Native chickens to Rapa Nui were used for their feathers in ceremonies. Also for meat and eggs”
(note from yours truly: chickens were not native to Rapa Nui of course; feathers of ocean birds were used in ceremonies)
The first archeological site we went to remained my fave to the end and I went back over and over.
The imposing Ahu Tongariki with the Pacific Ocean at its back is the fulfilled dream of most travelers who cross the planet to reach Easter Island. The image of Tongariki, together with that of the statues of the nearby Rano Raraku volcano, is the one that spread the Rapa Nui fame. And, since its restoration, this colossal structure has become a symbol and the coveted experience of the “mystical island”. It’s disarming tho. You enter from the side with the view of the ocean, and 2 vulcanos and there they are, 15 gloriously proud distinctly different figures. During each of my visits to this place, I stared at all 15, each individually, I circumambulated the ahu (ahu is the base on which the moai were plopped) innumerable times. I woke up at 5 am one morning to go see it at sunrise. I stopped there in mid day, in late afternoon… They mesmerized me.
Huuuuuge credit for their reconstruction and positioning goes to this Japanese company that took 2 years of painstaking examination of individual little rocks to determine which one fits where and how and putting all 15 moai back together, reassembling the ahu then marrying it all together. They do not look reconstructed or even touched since they were first placed there by the tribe who owned that sacred ground. The ground is hugged by the ocean and surrounded by the Poike volcano whose crater now has small eucalyptus forest and whose southern slope descends by dramatically steep cliffs to the ocean via some seriously funky rocks into a cove which, in turn, looks like it is trying to reach the nearby motu. The motu, depending on who your guide is, was the site of all kinds of fantastical occurences… To the right of the sacred ground is a tiny fishing port (read: 2 tents and a canoe), several allegedly very sacred caves where the tribe would hide and worship. Again, allegedly!
But the tribe did not just have the crazy impressive ahu with bad-ass moai. Oh no, they were the moai builders. Theirs was also the Rano Raraku volcano – the volcano into which the moai were made. The only rock that was ever used for moai which would then be rolled from Rano Raraku to tribes all over the island.
Uncle guide took me to Rano Raraku next. The volcano would look like a green tame hill had it not been for the centuries of sculptors who carved the famouse Easter Island heads directly into the volcanic rock: first the features, then the outline of the head, then deep around the head then under until the moai would be lifted out and separated from the ground. The volcano gave life to the moai in a cross between cellular division and in-utero birthing. The process definitely feels and looks entirely organic.
I thought of Michelangelo who only carved his sculptures out of single pieces of marble because he experienced it as breathing life into a rock. Well, the anonymous sculptors of Rapa Nui went a step further and worked straight into the volcano. They were not sissies like Michelangelo to have the rock brought to them. Apparently many people would lose hands working on these sculptures. Or get crushed under. At least according to uncle guide.
The eyes of the moai were made of hard coral. The requisite moai hat was made from the compact red cinder dug out of another volcano some 25 km away from Rano Raraku. The production of moai was, however, only considered final once brought to the final destination, given finishing touches to customize features, had the eyes attached, the sombrero positioned and the priests did their consecration thing. “Your ancestor’s moai is complete, neighbor tribe. Now pay up!”
Only very wealthy could afford the moai. The ancestors were revered and worshipped. Ahu’s would be placed always (with one known exception) so that the moai would face away from the ocean and towards the village. Behind the ahu, the land was sacred and the docking rights were reserved exclusively for the wealthy aristocracy… The good ol’ 1 percent!
But I digress. Let’s get back to birthing moai.
So everywhere in Rano Raraku you see moai scattered in varying stages of completion: Some still in the nascant position with the bottom and often even the sides completely attached to the volcano. Planning where which moai was going to come from was obviously a decision carefully deliberated.
Interestingly, some moai were larger some smaller. I suppose (or did I hear this from uncle guide?), some cost more than others.
In fact in Ahu Tongariki, some moai were waaaaay larger than others.
There is one moai in Rano Raraku that is completely different than the rest. It is of a stocky figure kneeling with his hands on his knees (unlike all the other moai which only had heads, torsos and a relief of alongated fingers placed around the navel).
You can walk all around the volcano Rano Raraku and observe the moai. Maybe that was on purpose: like a lovely store display for the browsing pleasure of the wealthy clientele. On one side, you find a crater lake full of beautiful reeds, occasional bird landing. Beautifully warm and quiet.
And more moai.
As you exit the archeological site of Rano Raraku, there is a long hike, which I took a few days later, which is almost entirely flanked by moai. Often the moai were adorned by hawks who would perch themselves on the nose or chin or forehead theatrically. It’s the same kind of hawk that I photographed a lot in areas above Patagonia in the mainland Chile.Apparently these hawks were brought here to kill the rodents who had made it on ships over illegally.
Next we visited the site where Hotu was buried. I should mention that Hotu is a popular figure in the modern iconography of Rapa Nui. There are modern full-figure wooden carvings of King Hotu all around the island. They show the royalty as a thin young man with imposing ahem proportions. Not sure any king ever was that hotu. Sorry! I know it’s your founder but come on!
Uncle guide showed me a burial site close to the entrance as being the King Hotu’s final resting place. Some distance away, a crew of archeologiests was working with a construction crew to reinforce an archeological site that looked like a large burial site. I will let you guess which was was actually King Hotu’s grave.
Anywho, there were interesting ceremonial caves in this site that I climbed into. There were also petroglyphs of fish, canoe, fish hooks, this octopus-like figure – all engraved on flat volcanic rocks. I will continue to see the rock carvings in most sacred grounds. Seems that all the tribes used similar petroglyphs.
There is one place where, next to the engraving of a tuna, there is also an engraving of a shark. There were fusions of animals out of which I could definitely make out squid parts.
Also, apparently most moai and all the ahu had engravings. Sadly, those engravings are now completely gone. If you see something that you think is a petroglyph, it could just be a crack in the rock.
Engravings in rocks became more popular, more stylized and more elaborate once the islanders adopted the myth of the birdman. Birdman involved an annual competition to determine the strongest islander: a young man from each tribe would try to get the first tern egg from a motu on the south-west side of the island, then swim back to the mainland, climb the volcano cliffs and present the egg to the ruler or some such. The men try to impede each other in accomplishing the goal and the deaths were not uncommon. There’s apparently a Kevin Costner movie about the birdman myth and competition. So you know you’re getting good information. I wonder if uncle guide participated in the screenplay?
Speak of uncle guide, our tour was nearing the end. We stopped at the beautiful Anakena beach. One of the 2 sand beaches on the otherwise super rocky volcanic island: one small, the other smaller. Anakena is a narrow cove with waves beating through the rocks to the sand stretch. But then the sand continues well back into the archeological remains of an ahu with 5 moai. The ahu is way longer i.e. it reveals that at least 2 more moai were plopped there at some point. There is also a solo moai and some beautiful petroglyphs nearby. There are remains of narrow houses which apparently were built solely for the protection from the winds and rains and not really as a dwelling. The dwelling all happened outside.
So yeah: a sand beach where you swim and look at moai.
On a different day, I will visit the smaller sand beach and that will become my favorite place on the island. A trecherous descent down the volcanic rock to a super narrow and short stretch of sand with some tricky currents but beautiful waves which, as you swim, can turn you to look at the magnificent steep cliffs which change colors with every move of the sun and clouds.
BTW, Rapa Nui skies are never completely blue.
After my educational tour, I got back and decided to go for a long walk at the end of which I was so sleepy that i inhaled my pineapple (which I cut myself!!!! gloat gloat!) and passed out…
If you set your alarm for 7:20 am so you can enjoy a leisurely coffee and oatmeal before your dive at 9 am, you will be waking up in pitch dark. The sun finally rises at 8 am. It sets at 8:30 pm. The variations around the year are small. Just like in French Poly but the Frenchies are not afraid to let the sun rise at 6 am
So I am drinking my Terra del Fuego Croatian shop coffee on Easter Island in pitch dark. The day break however is glorious. As the sky is always littered with clouds, there is never a dull celestial moment. The ocean loves these changing colors and flirts with them endlessly. Giddy with excitement to be diving, I stared at the ocean incessantly through my coffee and my hustle out of Mana Nui… My path to the dive shop takes me through the cemetery by the ocean next to the headstones covered in flowers, wooden roosters, small and medium size moai, teddy bears, chess boards, christmas lights, a permanent nativity scene, and a porcelain hula dancer…
The dive shop is right in the harbor (harbor: 8 wooden motor boats, each seating 5-10 people). The dive center was run by one girl and supported by 2 girl dive masters. The skipper was a boy and there was a dive master candidate kid that the girls bossed around.
Marie, a French divemaster, and Tami, a Chilean one, got me a suit, a tank, a bcd and a pair of flippers faster than you could say “bon día” or “bon jour”
I put my kit together. 4 other divers joined: 2 Chilean men who, oh shocker, never stopped talking (they had never met prior to this morning) and a French couple who also, oh stereotypes, had some drama going on and conducted several requisite eyerolls and an occasional “pfffft” just so we all know that they are not, I don’t know, Canadian?
We were going to dive the motus where the birdman rituals took place! Wow!!!!!! Motu Nui, Motu Iti and Motu Kao Kao are all gorgeous little islets covered in frigates and boobies. Each with beautiful volcanic rocks that dropped down in vertical walls.
Backroll, slow descent then the most magnificent underwater topography: dramatic rises and falls of the volcanic flow eternalized and adorned by endless intricate coral. And some tiny fish. Many species you find in French Poly but in waaaaaay smaller numbers. Notable absence of pelagics. But man that light in those rock formations. Wow!
We had one swimthrough, for good measure. I saw no nudibranchs. No snails, No spunges. Really odd…. I am dying to know what actually happen to the ocean around Rapa Nui.
But again, that light in the rocks! Wow! And let me tell you about the visibility! I have never seen better in all my years of diving. I guess that could explain the lack of many living things: not much plankton.
Atypically, I was happy to surface after 50 minutes. I think the deepest we got was 28 m.
My computer battery died so I followed my dm perfectly. Conspicuously, no one but her had a computer.
Everyone luckily was only doing one dive that day AND the dm had Suunto set to conservative (which surprisingly let us go deeper than 5 meters!)
Dive over and me blissed, I got back to my place, loaded on water and went for a long walk from Tahai along the water all the way to Orongo, the ceremonial village beautifully perched on the side of the most stunning of all Rapa Nui craters: Rano Kau.
Rapa Nui ain’t big but it sure has a lot of craters. And yea, this one was astounding from every gorgeous side.
To get to Orongo, however, one had a very long walk. The portion along the ocean was wonderful: little houses, a mini boat harbor (this harbor had 6 motor boats), another archeological site with a couple of moai, a group of coast guards repairing a boat… all lovely…. but then the road veered inland, then ascended steadily and finally snaked to the top. The humid heat of the midday got me to put my thumb out and hitchhike but only a moped stopped. An old polynesian dude (and I mean dude) who, I am guessing, in his hayday was a local Don Juan. Now, he was missing most teeth and his face revealed years of booze and cigarettes. He took me to Orongo and offered to be my guide. He explained that he would get some points with the admission staff there. Of course, he knew even less than uncle guide but I let him tag along. I will get rid of him by going for a long hike 20 minutes later.
Orongo’s famous petroglyphs are beautiful. Stunning! Elaborate, detailed and conforming to the rock with the stylized imagery. These rocks were all consecrated in sacred rituals. Only you can’t get anywhere near the rocks! Off limits and guarded.
The reconstructed ceremonial and rich-folk houses built into the ground and covered with rocks are accessible. You can peak through the opening on the top or on the side. And you can’t help but wonder: didn’t the people get sick and tired of having to crawl in and out of the house every time?
But here is the best part about the ceremonial village of Orongo: it has a direct view of the motus that I dove earlier in the morning. A sheer cliff plunges below the village into the turquoise ocean which swirls around the gorgeous bird-covered islets right in front. So yea, that birdman competition had guys climbing this sheer cliff after swimming a kilometer from the motus. Yikes!
My hike was dope: a trail that appears and disappears around the huge perfect crater the bottom of which is a fresh-water lake covered in reeds in ever changing colors. You don’t even have to squint for the lake to transform into an abstract painting.
I sat on the crater edge on the other side from Orongo, with my feet dangling above the vertical cliff and the unsettled ocean, watching frigates glide and boobies flap, all out on a food-finding mission. And you know it’s just a matter of time before the booby finds a fish and then the frigate steals it from her…
I walked back to the village stoked by my discovery of a path through the eucalyptus forest.
True to the Chilean custom of building hiking trails, going downhill required that you either run like a penguin or that you kill your knees. Someone really needs to teach park rangers in Chile how switch backs are made and what their benefits are.
Back in the village, I stopped by the place that had a show that night. Dance, music… I was not sure what to expect but the place seemed nice: a small bar leads to a large performance space with a drum set, amps, nice PA system… The place was decorated in Polynesian paraphenelia. A woman at the ticket counter and a little girl that looked just like her both had flowers in their hair. I started asking both of them questions, we got talking about how to best fasten a flower, about how to make a fan out of the show program brochure, how to jump on one foot from here to the stage holding the other foot in your hand… you know, the usual. Mom had beautiful shell earrings on and I discovered that she makes found-object art pieces and jewelry; she sells them at the stand number 5 on the main street artisan fair every day from 10:30 until 4pm.
Well, I just have to stop by and check out what you do.
Yay, do, here is my number. Also, you have to come see my husband’s band. They play every Saturday at the bar next to the airport.
Are you both Polynesian?
Oh no, we are from Santiago but we now live here…
A couple of days later at about 8:30 am, I will discover that she also has a job from 6am till 9:30am selling coffee, tea and snacks to the tourists who come to watch the sunrise by the 15 moai on the other side of the island. SuperMom!
I will go to her stand on my last day and pick up an amulet for myself. She says it would bring me good luck. Let’s see. 🙂
But back in the performance space bar, I bought a ticket for the show. Front row. Center. Of course!
After gobbling up baked yams in my kitchen, I put on my one summer dress (the dress left the suitcase for the first time since Valle de Elqui in mid December; now was March 15) and I strutted my stuff to the show. 2 young European boys were chatting me up as I walked by. Incidentally, they were later seated right next to me at the show. We became fast friends and were picking our favorite dancers out of the troop. They were Swiss and English and backpacking around South America. All three of us had spent time in the same places in Argentina. Instant bonding.
Before going in to the show, I snapped some pretty “moai in the sunset” pics and was just giddy with how lovely my days on Easter Island are going.
The show was amazing. Apparently, this was a modern version of the Rapa Nui traditional dance shows and they had a full large band: electric guitars, bass, drums, percussions, main singer who was also the MC in Spanish, Rapa Nui and English (he had some narrative help in 2 other dancers). The dancers also sang. The choreography was by a woman and it was a fresh mix of Polynesian hula, Rapa Nui fast movements and modern dance with elements of belly dancing even. Globalism can be very beautiful!
The performance told the story of the island’s history (shocker: it was different than what I heard from uncle guide or the toothless mopedist!). Beautifully choreographed and danced by three boys and 10 girls. I loved that some of the women were obviously older/ One was obviously a new nursing mom… It just all seemed so natural. And they were all scantly clad, no matter which costume change it was. My favorite dancer was this hunky guy who perhaps forgot (?) to cover his butt with a cloth so we got to watch his bare buns all night. At the very end of the night, when they get audience members to the dance floor, he came over and asked me to dance. I was hula’ing around trying not to peak at his meager coverage.
The show was 2 hours and the music was the traditional Rapa Nui rhythm which is much faster than your regular Tahitian or Hawaiian beat plus it had some rock n roll thrown in. Really cool.
I walked home happy to have my ears cleansed by some nice live music. And I dreamed of coral gardens.
The following morning again started with French press’ed coffee and oatmeal in the dark. Followed by a beautiful sunrise.
The evening before, a little scrawny and very mangy poodle had looked at me with droopy eyes so I fed it yam and oatmeal. Now she was sleeping on my door mat. She had waken me up a couple of times during the night with her high-pitch yelps. Rapa Nui is full of stray dogs. And garden-guarding dogs. And they all have something to say during the night. Loudly! In a cocophonic unison. The lil scrawny poodle is scared to the point of being totally neurotic. So she barks her high-pitch yelps every time a gang of dogs start making noise. Not sure if that was her defense mechanism but if I were her, I would keep a much lower profile.
Anyway, here again I was, with a lil Stevette! I don’t think anyone ever petted this poor dog because whenever I did, she was hysterically happy. Pobrecita!
Another wonderful thing was happening while I was on Easter Island: guavas were maturing. And the guava trees (ok, they were really bushes) are everywhere. Apparently the wild horses (yes, there were many horses who just roamed around the island belonging to no one) spread the guava seeds and the fruit was ubiquitous. But only for the first 2 days. Then all the trees were bare and you could buy guava at the market. By that time, I had had so much free guava that I was good.
So yeah, I would walk out of my “compound” passing the statue of the hunky Hotu, then pick guavas, pass by the cemetary, by a bunch of moai, walk through the village and to the dive center. All within 14 minutes.
On our 2nd day, it was just one more diver and me. There was a little bit more wind so the little motor boat took us only 100 feet from the mini marina and we dove around a submerged moai. An urchin made a home in the moai’s nostril so the tribal ancestor looked like he was long overdue for some nose hair grooming.
This dive site had way more fish: yellow trumpets, spotted morays, damsels, puffers, angelfish… and still some fun topography. Man, lava sure had fun sculpting in these parts!
After the dive, I decided to rent a bike and do this loop on the Western side of the island. I haggle for a 9 speed bike the brand of which is Happy (so you know you’re getting good stuff!). It seemed not too happy to go up a hill, on dirt or on uneven surfaces. So, I mainly pushed Happy around but we did cover about 17 km together.
My ambitious (schnell, los!) route included a long dirt road with a number of archeological sites: inevitable moai, tribal houses, chicken coops, and ceremonial caves. Now these caves, unlike the others I had seen in other parts of the island, are not just a hole in the ground that resembled a roofed terrace. These were looooong lava tubes that you would crawl or walk through very hunched with a torch light for a good 30 meters. I only went through a couple that were more walking than crawling and that had breaks in the middle so I did not have to light it. Not claustrophobic, I just did not want to scrape my knees (#princessonapea)
One called banana cave was glorious. It had a source of underground water and each break in the roof of the cave would feature a mini forest of fruit trees. None of which are native to the island but they smell and look lovely.
Stories of what these caves were used for varied wildly. Guides with their clients would come by and expound stories of church practices, sacrificial rituals, dances and songs, ancient banana recipes… shameless nonsense aka mucha caca de toro but highly amusing. All the guides all at every site had their stories, none of which matched and none of which have much to do with the official anthropological findings…
I guess that’s called the oral history?
The last 8 km of my bike tour was a decent paved road so I was finally able to ride my Happy bike. We rode back to the village then to Mana Nui compound and chilled out from the heat watching the chickens. I have not yet mentioned the chickens? Well, let me do that: Rapa Nui is full of chickens. Just like the horses and the dogs and the cats of Rapa Nui, the chickens roam free and wild. Many mamas and babies of various sizes parade around everywhere. And sure, there is no shortage of Sashas kookooreekooing through the night. Our compound had a few families pass through daily but there was one mama with her 5 tiny chicks that I loved. She was so gentle and so attentive to her clueless brood, it was touching. The babies were so teeny that they would get stuck between pieces of dirt or they would walk some dumb way, she would just patiently nudge them into the right direction. The babies could’ve easily been the windup toys from my collection. Wobble wobble wobble… stop!
I made food, inhaled it then walked down to the beach to watch moai and sunset. I got to chat with some Argentinian anesthesiologists, 2 corpulant ladies very proud of their travel adventures. I listened attentively as they described their traversals of the globe. Even if their stories were obvious brags, I really really really admired the independent spirit in these Argentinian women. In that machismo culture and shitty economy? No small feat!
The next day, I did my same morning ritual and ran over to the dive center just to be told that no, Armada de Chile has closed the port and it may reopen at 2:30 pm. Why? It’s sunny, the waves were far bigger yesterday, it’s not too windy… Well, they like to show that they have a function in the Rapa Nui society so they do these closures regularly. Oh I see. OK, well, I’m gonna go rent a car today so I can make a larger loop to some further-away places. I went to return the bike and the place also rented cars (as well as made keys, sold souvenirs and made photocopies)… They had one truck for only $25 per day that had many dents, windows could not really close and the 2nd gear was … unavailable? I decided that was the right kinda challenge for my Saturday so I rented it for 2 days.
It wobbled like the baby chicks and the engine was rather rattly but hey, the total loop of the island is only some 100 km. First stop was this wonderful archeological site with 9 moai on an ahu. What was different about these moai was that they were inland, on a hill overlooking the ocean. The others were all by the ocean and turned towards the village.
It is really tricky photographing moai. You need narrow sun hitting them frontally. Any other light angle reduced their wowsiness. Alas I was clicking away relentlessly, unfavorable sun angle be damned.
Next stop: the red cinder rock crater. The place where all the moai hats come from. Back in the day, every giant stone ancestor had a red sombrero. They all fell and broke and the ones now on moai were all reconstructed. In fact most moai still have no hats. Why these hats? Perhaps I should not try and quote the many imaginative if not well informed guides. The top of the crater overlooked Hanga Roa and the Western side of the island. On top, I met this wonderful couple from Santiago and we spent an hour chatting. What about? Everything! Per usual.
Next up, my favorite 15 moai ahu. God they are so imposing and in some crazy way really soothing to the soul – perhaps because they invite contemplation?
Hard to leave this place. OK, I will. I’ll go take a swim in the ocean at Anakena beach. I park my truck the wrong way so that the window that does not close is smack next to the tall shrubbery so noone notices the gap. The island is super safe and there are people milling everywhere but I think I just enjoyed not parking the right way and knowing that noone cares. 🙂
I’d love to just run into the ocean and swim but there are hundreds of people on this beach. Oh no, the cruise ship was not able to stop at the “harbor” side of the island because of the restrictions imposed by the Armade de Chile. So they anchored in front of the Anakena beach and are conducting their version of the Normandy Invasion. Many chubby and overdressed Americans are carefully assisted out of the zodiacs onto the carpeted plateau under a large awning on top of some low rocks… And then they crawl out onto the beach and straight into 2 little make-shift “restaurants”.
I run an obstacle course to the ocean, jump in, swim trying not to look at the zodiac clusterfuck but rather towards the moai above the beach.
I swim to the other side of the zodiacs and then realize why all the action happens at that one side. The waves are washing me over sharp rocks and sea weed. OK, I can navigate this so I freedive another obsticle course and now I am on the beach. Oh man!
I do an obligatory circumambulation of the moai (the cruise ship folks largely ignore them) and go searching for the engravings and petroglyphs.
I am also hungry. So I join the crowd at one of the tiny restaurants. I managed to snag a nice table and lo and behold, I find out that they have fried plaintains!!!!!! Oh happy day!
I get to chat with the lovely waitresses while I savor my favorite food. Last crumb licked off the plate, I head out and away from Dunkirk.
I find 2 archeological sites nearby that have beautiful ahu still standing and broken moai lying next to them. But, man, it is too hot to be a tourist right now.
Hey wait, there is that other smaller beach. Let’s go find it, darn it. Wow, that was lucky: it’s literally 5 minutes away. I park my lil wreck and brave the sharp rocks down the cliff to the beach. This one has hardly any people and only 2 are swimming. Getting in through the waves is so fun. I am freediving, splashing, pretending to be a boat, grinning and squealing with delight while tumbling through the water. I so love swimming in the ocean. And how cool it is that you can look out at the turquoise water then turn around and see the gorgeous cliffs. Much water goofiness later, I finally get out and instead of drying (coz no towel; also super hot) I put my clothes on and climb back up.
Next stop, some place that has a sign in Rapa Nui. No idea what it is but hey, let’s find out. Oh, really beautiful petroglyphs. No signage but you can figure it out: tuna, canoe, squid, sure…
I stop at a few more places and then I drive back to the 15 moai. Just to see them as the sun is narrow. They take my breath away again, this time with the new color on their surface. I gave each a name and assign each a personality type. OK, maybe I should quit this overanalysis and get going.
I stop at a few more places then get back to Mana Nui and leave my rattler there, then get ready and walk across the village to see another music and dance show.
This one is well known and a tad too well attended. Oh and today, the cruise ship people have the front 6 rows all reserved. So there are only a handful of tickets. And most are already reserved. Well, I will get in one way or another. I charm the ladies selling tickets by complementing them on their hair, jewelry, eye color and eventually they wave me in. Phew!
I plop myself in front of the sound guy, making myself small so he would not object and the show starts. A movie first about what this cultural center does: revival of the Rapa Nui traditions of dance, music, making of traditional clothing, tatoos, cultivating crops, making food, history, oral traditions and of course language which had been all but forgotten by the 1960’s.
Finally, the music and the dance begin: fast, furious, exhilarating, exciting… Many hand drums beat frenzied rhythms that dancers follow perfectly. The dancers in this troop are even more varied in age: from young teenagers to ladies in their 40’s and 50’s. Gents too.
The one thing I did not like was that almost every other song, the dancers would come to the audience to get people on the stage. I would’ve rather just watched the performance.
Every time the dancers were scanning the audience for “volunteers”, I would futz with my backpack looking down and hunching away from them. But they got me for the final number. I was dragged to the stage feeling really uneasy. But then, I discovered, hey I can do this, man! I can hula like the best of em. OK, maybe not the best, maybe not even the mediocre of them but you know, I can fake it.
So I did.
This cultural center is pretty far from Mana Nui. I made my walk home even longer by taking a route all the way into the hills, then descending down. The moon was out and almost full. People on the street were recognizing me from the stage. A truck passed me honking and the person did this hula hand move through the window. Hey, I’m a celebrity tourist LOL
My poodle was waiting for me and slept on the door mat. Barking regularly as per usual.
The next day, I woke up at 5, got in my truck and drove to my 15 moai again so I can watch the sunrise behind them. Sunday, the dive shops were closed. Hence the new plan.
Many people were already there snapping away at the pink sky behind the statues.
I had to run behind the moai into the beach, hide behind some big rock and pee but then I resumed my rising sun tourist duties.
I stayed longer than most. Hanging out with my personality-trait statues. Then I found my friend from the first night of music and we spent the next 2 hours talking and drinking tea. I helped her load up and then went to Rano Raraku (the crater from which all the moai were made). Partially because I really wanted to see it again but partially to make a point of visiting it for the second time despite the restriction of the National Park ticket. How? By getting in from the side.
Man that place was fascinating with the birthing of heads, with a beautiful reed-covered lake and beautiful views.
At the end of the visit, I walked through a little hut with tchatchki vendors. Then on to a moai hike for 5 km. Moai in different levels of ruin lying around nose in the ground or staring at the sky.
Next up: fried plaintains then my fave beach!!!! Weeeeeeeee!!!!! Life rocks, ladies and gents!
It was late afternoon when I finally started driving back. I stopped at the place where Hotu was buried. That’s when I discovered that uncle guide had no idea which of the 2 ahu was the burial site of the king. “The best guide on the island” my ass
Sundays, the dance/music venues are closed AND I had been driving most of the day so, once I was back in the village, I decided to go on a looooong walk along the water. I found an amazing site to watch the sunset over the ocean. On the way there, I passed by the most controversial hotel in the world. Move over Trump Tower.
The Hangaroa Eco Village and Spa hotel was bought from the Chilean government by the Scheiss family, a powerful investment group, in the 1990s, but the Rapa Nui say their ancestors had been cheated into giving up the land years before. In 2010/11, for about 6 months, Rapa Nui occupied the hotel and would not leave until heard. Then the Chilean police just forced them out brutally. Today it is a posh resort but its outside walls are covered with admonishing protest signs, mentioning hegemony, usurpation, imperialism, fascism, siting horrific actions by the Chilean government against Rapa Nui… My favorite, and arguably the most effective protest sign simply reads “CACA!”
My dinner tonight was a picnic on the rocks above the ocean as I watched the sunset. (observe my segue from caca to dinner)
My last full day on Rapa Nui had me return the car to Mrs. Graciela and collect my deposit while discussing the “groundhog day”‘ness of a tourist town; it had me scuba dive with just a dive master through the most beautiful scenery ever; it had me hang with the girls of the dive shop chatting about well, the usual everything; it had me hang at the stall 5 on the main street fair to with my friend; it had me shop for consecrated rocks from the tribal members; it had me doing more long walks; another long chat with a Dutch woman who has been living in Chile most of her life, making a living currently by being a tarot card reader, psychic, hippie philosopher, but mainly by working for her dad in his construction company… Yet another nice chat with these 5 people who were visibly shitfaced and babbling about a museum.
The last day on the island also had me do a picnic with the ocean view… And another dance and music performance.
Finally, this last day had me pack my suitcase for the last time. Jam packed. My lil poodle was in attendance mesmerized at my ninja attacks at the suitcase meant to make it take more of my belongings… One develops quite a strange attachment to a suitcase one dragged around for 4.5 months this time. And 2 months the last trip. And another 2 months before than. And seven before then… The suitcase is your forgiving friend who tolerates every manner of abuse including your packing style of throw in and zip yet it helps you find everything you need without even looking. It’s even tolerant of the strange smells of the contents which have only been washed by shampoos and in sinks. Packing is bringing me down. There is nowhere more to go but home…
Stevette was there to cheer me up with her high-pitch barks and neurotic jumps on my legs. And she probably gave me a flee or two in the process. Oh Stevette!
Next morning, dragging the bag out for the last time while jacked up on the Tierra del Fuego Croatian coffee, I pile Into the van with Vicky. She tells me why it is that Easter Island ladies are so bad ass. “Mainly because our men are no good lazy assholes.” she explains scientifically. LOL
I’m at the airport, a hanger divided in 2 parts: area pre checkin and the waiting room for after checkin. We could not check in because there was no electricity at the airport. So we waited. Then they gave up, just let us onto the plane and off we flew. I was somehow in the front row of the first class. Lying down with a fluffy comforter and warmed nuts, I thought to myself: can I always do this? Nope, don’t even dream about getting used to it! OK.
Landing in Santiago, which is 2 hours ahead, after the 5 hour flight, had us there with very narrow sunrays shining onto the beautiful Andes’ granite peaks. We flew over the City and I recognized my old haunts. It was spooky how much of this country I knew… More than most Chileans. More than I know any other country…
We land and now I have 4 hours to kill at the airport. Luckily I find a good wifi nook and a kid from Uruguay to chat with. Also, hot sandwiches.
At some point, employees of a fastfood burger joint across from my sandwich wifi nook run out with microphones and start karaoke singing Scream and Shout.
That reminds me that perhaps I should go closer to my gate. So I find my gate. But the boarding time is still a while away. So I roam on. And I discover a massage chair! I still have a bunch of pesos so I will let you guess what I did for the remainder of the time. Well not all of it because once properly massaged, I was doing pushups, kicks, yoga…
In line to board, I was behind a group from Taiwan. I chatted them up and we were showing each other photos, excitedly sharing stories from the places we both visited… A mother and daughter duo that I talked to the most actually lived in Melbourne, Australia but they joined this organized tour group in Taipei. They just flew in from Rio. Now they were flying from Santiago to LA then they will fly from LA to Taipei then to Melbourne. OMG!!!!!!
I slept like a log. Then I woke up and it was time to go through the US Homeland Security rigamarol before I get to enjoy Peete’s coffee
That coffee in mind, I was going through fast and furious. Ran over 2 terminals to my connecting flight only to discover that Alaska cancelled my flight and that the next one was 2 hours away. So I had a lot of coffee, and juice, and bubbly water and everything. A couple of bathroom visits later, I was ready to board. As was Alaska.
Still on the plane, while waiting to exit, I managed to update my Verizon and then Uber to my house. Which was still standing…
How I did not want to be there… At all… I would ve given anything to be on Rapa Nui. Or Antarctica. Or the Falklands. Or riding my Hanky around…
Living out of a stinky suitcase with unkempt dreaded hair tucked strategically under a hat, surrounded by animals and people speaking other than English is so much better…
Vagabonding Zwindling 