Photos and Article by Nancy S. Tardy
|
|
Photos and Article by Nancy S. Tardy |
|
       
|
Forget the stories you may have
heard about the difficulties of traveling to
The head of this statue, called a moai, is
the all that can be seen after centuries of soil have covered its body at
its excavation site in the
The only village on the island, Hanga Roa, has a vast number of restaurants serving the residents and travelers. The price and quality varies, but the fresh seafood specials are always a good value. Come with U.S. dollars, as this is primarily a cash economy, and the local ATM machine only takes Mastercard. Visitors wishing to obtain cash from other cards or travelers checks must queue up inside the bank for a lengthy transaction. The costs of traveling to Five and a half hours of flying west into the uninhabited central South Pacific brings the traveler to a speck of land and the small airport located about two miles from Hanga Roa. Most of the arriving passengers have lodging reservations, but hotel and visitor information booths are open at the airport for those needing additional help. Taxis to the village, where most of the accommodations are located, are available for about $2.00, but most hotels and guest houses offer transfers for their guests. The only hotel not located in town is the newest member of the high-end Chilean resort chain, Explora, and costs about $700/per person daily, full board and all activities included. Hanga Roa covers more area than
you might think a small town of 3800 people would, but many hotels and guest
houses are located near the center of town on Avenida Atamu Tekena,
affectionately known as “restaurant row”.
The Hotel Orongo is noted for its modest prices
and owner, Raul, will fix gourmet meals for his guests and other tourists
with advance notice. Less than a block away, the Hotel Tauraa offers
slightly more upscale surroundings and upgraded rooms and amenities.
Most hotel owners offer tours using their own
vehicles or by local taxi.
Alternatively, travelers can independently hike,
bike, or rent an all-terrain vehicle, car or even a horse to tour the small,
65 square mile island.
Guidebooks and online sites, such as Tripadvisor,
are helpful for choosing lodging and learning about the historic sites.
Most of the island is an open air museum and
World Heritage Site protected within the Of course, the number one reason
for visiting Where did the rapanui come from
and why?
Though this has been the subject of debate for years,
it is generally agreed that these were Polynesians peopling the Pacific
eastward from Why did they carve the moai? These statues probably were erected by the rival clans, not for worship, but more likely as veneration of deceased ancestors or leaders. Most of the moai are found around the edge of the island facing inland and standing on raised stone platforms, called ahu, themselves an architectural phenomenon of intricate stonework. During the approximately 1200 years the islanders carved these statues, their size increased greatly; possibly an example of an early day “keeping up with the Joneses”. As the size of the moai increased, so, obviously, did the weight, increasing the need for more laborers to work in the quarries and to haul, by still undetermined means, the statues from the central island quarry to their final resting place along the shore, often miles away. Some of the erected moai stood over 30’ tall and weighed up to 80 tons. This “bigger is better” notion stripped the island of its natural resources, throwing it into one of the earliest known ecological collapses. The birds were killed for food; the waters along the shore were overfished; and all the trees were felled, possibly to make skids for the statues to slide on and ropes to pull them along their routes. After reaching its peak population of about 10,000, there were only about 150 inhabitants left in the 1800s after European sailors brought diseases that further decimated the population. Even today, the island is largely covered with native grass and short shrubs; the few trees that can be found have been planted in reforestation efforts. Why were the statues destroyed? Almost 900 moai have been inventoried; two thirds remain stuck in their birthplace quarry or along the “road” to their destination, while the remainder have been pulled down by competing rapanui tribes determined to wreck their opponent’s work while fighting over depleting resources. The moai standing today have all been re-erected and are, indeed, sights to behold as we are vividly reminded of the fragility of our own ecosystems. Two quarries on the island were used; the main quarry of Rano Raraku is a volcanic site filled with a fairly soft rock of compressed ash called tuff, and the Puna a Pau quarry provided the red stone carved for the top knots that dressed some of the moai. Hundreds of partially completed statues lie on the slopes of Rano Raraku awaiting completion, while some finished ones sink into the soil from centuries of neglect. Of the sites, Ahu Tongariki, an ahu with fifteen moai, is the perhaps the most awe-inspiring. It was restored in the 1990s after a tsunami had scattered the statue remnants and is a located on a spectacular ocean-front site.
Grazing wild horses give this heritage site of Ahu Tongariki a definite non-museum feel. Another site which should not be missed is Anakena, which is a crescent-shaped beach of white sand providing an ethereal backdrop to two renovated ahu. One of these contains six moai gazing fixedly away from the beach filled with nearly nude sun worshippers.
Three of the Anakena moai sport the red
topknot carved from stone at the Puna a The small self-guided museum
depicting
The moai at Ahu Ko Te Riku is the only re-erected statue showing eyes that the rapanui created from white coral and black obsidian stone. Whatever your length of stay, your visit to mysterious www.hotelorongo.com/ingles.htm www.southpacific.org/guide/easter-island.html
|
