Easter Island 77f showers, sunny, windy
Easter Island is another site that is on my short personal highlights list. When anyone would ask where are you going?, the list always - Easter Island, Panama canal, Suez canal – all for different reasons but the same excitement.
We had 2 days in Easter Island. 2 days are normally reserved for the bigger cities- Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney so while surprising, fine by me. I had an itinerary planned to cover the 2 days including a stay on the island with a sunrise over some Moai statues to look forward to. We arrived early in the morning and this island is truly in the middle of nowhere.
Sunrise over Easter Island from the boat
View of island from the boat. if you enlarge and look along the coastline, in the middle, there is a grouping of 4 moai and 1 further to the left.
When traveling there are always unknowns that will catch up with you at the most inopportune times. I had researched and read about Easter Island but not on visiting Easter Island with a cruise ship. And further unknowns of visiting with this cruise ship. And as usual Mr. Murphy and his law is never far away.
Easter Island does not have the typical dock like we have anchored at the other stops. It isn’t a trade destination as all their goods come by ship or airplane. The Island has more of a cove that is surrounded by rocky outcroppings and generally a lot of obstacles. This means that passengers are ferried from the ship to the town dock in tenders (tender = lifeboat used to ferry passengers to the landing) The cove is also very small so only 1 tender could be in the cove at a time. The ship was estimating 20 -30 min per tender trip containing about 120 people on a good day. Assume 2000 passengers (although not everybody gets off at any one stop) and the sea waves cooperate, do the math and it is dicey to start with. The sea is normally rough and getting into that cove is regulated by the Chilean Marine officials who allow things hour by hour.
The water was normal active when we arrived in the early morning. But by the time the Chilean officials showed up and did all the necessary immigration stuff – the waves were starting to kick up. The short story is that disembarking was halted for an hour in the morning and shortly after lunch, stopped for the rest of the day. There were many, many, disappointed people with cancelled tours etc. I was one of them. Plans down the drain, the tour agency I had originally contracted with then offered a 1 day highlight tour the next day if I was interested. Oh yes please.
Day 2 the waves were a little better although stepping in the tender entrance as you are boarding from the boat platform could quickly change from 1 ft below the platform to 3 ft above the platform. Plenty of people to assist also led to plenty of directions, not always saying the same thing. But I made it to shore, and we finally started the tour. One of the big difficulties is that the tour group had about 15 people but there was no way of knowing when the 15 would arrive. Some of you might be a little proud of me – I installed WhatsApp (with minimal moaning) and used it to contact the tour guide and let him know when I was arriving. Others were on radio silence. But finally, several hours after I arrived, we were ready to start. It would be a high-speed tour as the last tender was a little after 4pm.
Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited islands on earth. The nearest inhabited land, Pitcairn Island (pop 50) is 1200 miles. The closest town with more than 500 inhabitants is 1800 miles away. The nearest continental point in Chile is 2100 miles away. Easter Island was created by 3 extinct volcanos and shaped like a triangle – one volcanic caldera is at each of the points. By size the island covers 63 sq miles. It is part of Chile.
One of the calderas
The official population comes in at about 7,000 but our guide assured us that was over inflated to obtain more services and the more realistic population is around 4,000. There is schooling through high school, a hospital and only people who can trace heritage back to the original inhabitants, can own land. In the 60’s there was a US air force base as well as a NASA presence. TV came to the island in 1975. They have an airport that handles large planes as tourism is the main economy. Hit hard by the pandemic, this is the first year the ship and plane schedule is approaching pre-pandemic levels. Most of the island has been preserved as a national park. To visit the park, you must be accompanied by a native guide or no admittance.
Many theories abound about Easter Island on many subjects. Most of these theories can’t be proven. During the Islands history most of the indigenous population (maybe a high of 3000) died from introduced diseases or were taken as part of the Peruvian Slave raids. By the time Europeans arrived and tried to learn the oral history, the written language had already been lost with no way to confirm the oral history as given. Most of the information on Easter Island ends with – no conclusive evidence exists.
The first European documented to land on the Island, named it Easter Island as it was discovered on Easter Sunday. Even the Polynesian name Rapa Nui has provided many translations including ‘the navel of the world’ but again, multiple translations / theories exist. Rapa Nui is not only the Polynesian island name but also the name of the original inhabitants and their spoken language.
The Island is thought to have been inhabited between 800AD and 1200AD but with such a large range and no definitive proof, that is also a theory. The original inhabitants were thought to have arrived from the Cook Islands, or other southern Polynesia islands or maybe Peru – again theories.
The island was a high chief society. Chiefs, much like kings, are ancestors of the original chief. There was thought to be around 8 different clans ruled in this fashion with a clan being more of settlement in the island. It was during this period (1200’s on) that the Moai’ were built. From the 1700’s -early 1800’s several things occurred. Ecologically all the native trees, animals and birds became extinct. Theories exist but not agreed. There were tribal wars between the Chief’s ancestor clan and a new warrior clan. During the internal warring almost all the Moai statues were toppled from their platforms or broken. This was a sign of disrespect for the ancestor clan and strength of the warrior clan. The warrior clan won and determined that any chief would now be decided by a yearly physical competition with the winner claiming the title of Bird Man for a year.
By the mid 1800’s all the completed moai had been pushed over. Some of the ahu’s (platforms) were reconstructed and almost all of the moai standing today were repaired and reset on the ahu from the 1950s – 1990s. All of the moai in these pictures have been restored to whatever condition feasible.
There is much more current history to the island – probably akin to the experience of the American Indians and the European / American population introduction (disease, death, taking of lands, wars). Interesting absolutely, but not the focus of my visit which was history to include the moai.
I asked my guide – What was the purpose of the moai? He suggested that the moai were carved to represent important people in the tribe. A moai is a spiritual creation that retains the person’s spirit in the statue and provides protection/guidance to the clan. Clans were built on coastal areas and the moai were installed with the back to the ocean, facing inland. This was to provide a sense of boundaries with the moai looking over the clan’s land. This would also warn other clans that they were trespassing. The one grouping that faces the ocean is thought to be landmarks or protection for the fisherman coming back to the island.
Moai were carved from volcanic mountains of Tuff rock. This is a more easily carved volcanic type of rock (compressed ash). There are almost 1000 moai on the island and a good portion of the statues remain unfinished, in the Rano Raku quarry. Moai are generally 13 ft tall with a weight of 13 tons. The tallest moai is about 33ft and 80 tons. They are considered full body statues, but the head is disproportionately one third of the statue. The head and torso are carved but legs are not defined. Towards the end of the moai building period, 1200 – late 1600’s, a cylindrical hat or pukoa was added as a separate piece. There is some theory that statues could also have been painted or clothed. It has been estimated that it took 6-7 people at least 1 year to carve 1 moai.
The general steps of creating a moai:
1. The outline of the moai is etched in the rock on the side of the quarry.
2. The sides and front are chiseled out.
3. The back of the statue is chiseled out from the mountain.
4. The statue is slid down the mountain to the ground and placed upright in a hole dug to secure the statue in place for finishing.
5. The back of the statue and any other work was then finished except for the eyes.
6. The statue was moved to its final resting place on a platform know as an ahu.
7. The eyes were finished (inserting coral and obsidian as a pupil) during a ceremony that placed the spirit (of the person being honored) into the statue.
Sounds simple in that list but let’s unpack some of that. Only hand stone carving tools were available. If a harder rock was encountered during chiseling, the project was abandoned and restarted elsewhere. While one can imagine chiseling out the front and sides, what did it take to severe the back of the statue from the mountain in a manner that did not break the statue. How do you slide 13 tons of rock down a mountain without breaking it. Some of the moai were positioned miles from the quarry. How were these statues moved that distance.
The one question that has received the most investigation is how the statues (13 tons) were moved by hand. Again, the answer is - theory only. But the most interesting theory is that it has been shown to be feasible to ‘walk the statue’ by using 2-3 teams of workers with ropes who rock the statue from both sides, left right. Due to the shape of the base, this rocking motion slowly propels the statue forward.
Here is a link that demonstrates how the statue might have been rocked or walked.
Of course, in the 1600’s these 13 ton statues weren’t rocked on a smooth path but up and down miles of rough terrain. Rarely are there answers to many questions that do not end with – but that is a theory.
The Tuff volcanic rock is also susceptible to erosion from wind or water. It’s amazing that any of the statues survived the complete process from creation up to today.
For a couple of reasons, most of my pictures are from a distance. The park is well protected from traffic. Because the moai’s have sustained erosion, they are not easy to photograph up close and don’t show much detail. Profiles help give a shape understanding and looking at the total ahu is visually stunning.
Let’s start with the quarry. The statues were carved in the mountain side, released from the back. Then slid down the mountain for finishing. Around the quarry are multiple broken moai.
Here you can see how the moai are positioned looking inland and one of the moai has had the eyes reconstructed. These are the moai visible from the boat.
This is a very common picture of the moai - 15 of them on one ahu. You can see the more common size of moai but also taller ones. the second from the right has the hat or pukoa. This set of moai were overlooking ruins of a clan - generally low rock walls outlining gardens and such. Houses would have been built of wood and palm fronds.
Up close of a moai shows the erosion and lack of detail. Right behind are some of the rock walls and a fallen moai off to the left has not been restored or placed upright.
Here is the same moai - right of picture where the profile gives a better view
Another group of moai on the only sand on the island. There is only 1 sand beach with the rest of the coast line pure rock.
I'm a little behind again in posting. The next stop is Pitcairn Island, the oddest cruise destination I have encountered.
'Iorana. Ka oho riva-riva
I’m learning so much from your travels! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for sharing! Are you thinking you'll head back to Easter Island at some point?