Rapa Nui

After our Russian flight rigmarole (see Minor Mishap #9) we met Dad in Santiago (yay!) before heading to Rapa Nui (translated as: Big Race i.e. Easter Island). The flight got a little turbulent near the end but apparently that is quite normal. Goody. Something to look forward to on the return flight. The runway took up the entire width of one end of the island - which made landing exciting. Our hotel Iorana (¨Welcome¨ in Rapa Nui-an) was right on the coast and had a spectacular view of rugged coastline, which we named Hell's Precipice. The rest of the day was free to explore town - the one main street. Horses and dogs were our "security escorts" while roaming many of the streets. We were so exhausted we fell in to bed early.

The view from our hotel room

Our second day on the island consisted of two half-day tours. The morning was exploring the museum, top knot quarry, and Ahu Akivi - the only statues (Moai) facing towards the ocean. At lunch time we enjoyed fresh fish on the coast and then walked back to Iorana Hotel along the coastline. The afternoon tour took us to the volcano Rana Kao, where there was an ¨Olympic Village¨ (Orongo). This was the location of the 400 year old Birdman contest to become the King's right hand man. The crater of the volcano contained a spectacular lake, filled with reeds apparently genetically identical to those at Lake Titikaka in Peru. Final destination for the day was an Ahu that was constructed in a very similar way to an imperial Incan wall. (This led Thor Heyerdal to mistakenly speculate that Rapa Nui was populated by Incan descendants.)

The next day was a full day tour, where we got to see remains of a village, followed by Ahu Tongariki (which was our first view of Moai with topknots), and then the Moai quarry (in another volcano - Rana Roratka). After frollicking amongst the unfinished Moai, we walked into the crater, also lake filled with an extra helping of Dengue fever, before heading down to a packed lunch. We traveled next to the navel of the world, before our last stop at the only beach of the island. This was where the original settlers had landed and the oldest Moai were found.

Ahu Tongariki

Our last day we made up our own tour of the Moai along the coast towards the museum - consisting of the only one retaining coral eyes. We spent some time in the museum library reading about the undeciphered Rapa Nui script, Rongo Rongo. We wandered around trying to find an unusual home Dad had seen and obsessively wanted to photograph... at any cost. Mum and I gave up while Dad went back to run around in circles. We stumbled across it at the next corner. Once dad had finally caught up with us, we went back to the hotel for some final pictures at Hell's Precipice.

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