20th November – Easter Island

We all slept well and struggled to get up before 09:30 when the alarm went. Tamsin pulled back the curtains and the sunlight spilled in and filled the room.

Vai at Vinapu and Tahira

Breakfast was the usual fayre, bread, cereals and eggs any style you want. We met up with our party (six in total) and discussed the activity. This differed from the description last night of 6kms total walking and was now 10km with steep walking for the first 6kms! I mentioned this to the guide, Vai, and the American girls concurred and said that they didn’t want to go that far. Vai, said that he could modify the walk to fit and reduce the climb. We all thought that was a good idea. Vai is a young, charming, athletic looking chap who Tamsin tells me is good eye candy.

A top knot

The first stop, Vinapu and Tahira was near the end of the runway and has two ahus. The one nearest is the most complete. Vai described the building of these and that the Kings (tribal chiefs) were on the top plinth and lesser nobility/persons on the next level. On the ahus are the moais of the Kings and associated personnel. These look in land and are there as the ancestors to protect the village. Underneath the ahu the bones of the Kings et al are placed. In front of the ahus the commoners are buried. We looked at the moais and then some of the “top knots”. The “top knots” are literally that. A ”top knot” that is placed on top of the moias. This represents the dyed red hair that can be seen in Polynesian culture today.

The Ranu Kau crater

The mini-van took us along passed the runway and into the town Huonga Roa and up the side of the Ranu Kau crater. We walked about 3kms up the side of the crater then across to look inside. Looking into this open crater is fantastic. It has fresh water at the bottom that Vai told us was about 40mts deep. On the surface there appeared to be islands. He told us these were reed islands and that around the edge could be found mango, avocados and other fruits trees as well as sugar cane. These were about 200mts below us and difficult to see, but we are informed that this contains the native flora of the island. We continued walking around the rim, taking pictures etc.

A typical house in Orongo

We then met up with the mini-van and continued on to the ceremonial village of Orongo.  This is part of the park and Vai had to sort out our entry whilst we perused the visitors centre. This is a reconstructed village that was once an important part of the more recent Napa Rui culture. After the collapse of the King/Tribal culture it was replaced by a meritocracy based on physical ability. The King or his representative would compete annually for the right to rule. This is known as the Bird Man culture and lasted for about 300 years. It required that the (male) competitor climb down the cliffs and swim to the nearby island of Molu Nui and gather an egg from the manutara (sooty tern) and return. The first to do so, or their mentor, would then rule for the year. A further prize was to marry the virgin who had been held captive in a cave to whiten (purify) her skin. Many competitors would die by falling from the cliffs either by poor judgement or being pushed, or drown in the strong currents. This all came to an end after about 300 years when and English Catholic priest came to the island in the late 16^th century and declared it a pagan ceremony – jeez those guys were no fun!!!  Sadly, today, the sooty terns are no longer to be seen due to over predation.

We returned to the hotel for lunch as it was now well passed 1:00pm. The original plan had been to go out later at 03:30pm and go to a beach for a swim. We declined this and opted to use the Jacuzzi and pool for the afternoon. It turned out that nobody went to that beach as 2 of the ladies went into town and one went to a local beach to swim instead.

The delightful jacuzzi

After bubbling for a while in the enormous Jacuzzi, we showered and then  went to play cards in the lounge and indulge in some cocktails – gosh, this travelling is such hard work, but someone has to do it  ;^))))))))))).