Easter Island (Rapa Nui), has captured the world’s imagination with its almost 900 giant Moai - larger than life human faced statutes created by the Rapa Nui people. The Rapa Nui had a thriving culture in this remote part of the world beginning in about 300 AD. There has always been the question as to where the island inhabitants came from and how they got here and why the statues. On an Easter Day back in 1722 when a Dutch ship “discovered” the island there where only a few thousand people on the island, which at the time had completed depleted the forest and natural resources. By the 19th century only about 111 of the Napa Nui people survived. Today the island is part of Chile and is protected in part by the UNESCO World Heritage site. The population of the island today is around the 7,000, where it thrives on both the fishing and tourist industries.
Our day was most incredible, it was a pinch me, I can’t believe we are here day. The weather was perfect, a breezy 25ish degree celsius day, there was a good roll in the water making tendering a bit tricky and all the stars lined up for us today. First, we thank the Crew for really making this happen for all the guests that wished to get off. Each and every guest was handled very delicately as the tender crashed against the ship, “wait, wait, wait, okay go”, were the shouts. I believe Henk operating on the ship tender side and Cristel Operating on the dock side where there all day, in fact, I had just chatted with Cristal and she informed me that Henk had a sore back last night from all the pulling and pushing of the guests. I also believe the Captain was at the helm all day keeping the ship in position. No anchoring here because of the coral and two other cargo ships had were already positioned at the marked spots. So thank you so, so much to the crew. The next thanks goes to the Shore Excursion people, great tour, great van and driver and moreover great guide in Sabrina. So our day did not start with getting up at the crack of stupid and waiting for a tender ticket, I believe the first people were in line at about 4:30am. I also know of someone who joined the 4 and 5 star line at 7:30 and did get called to go off until after 11am. Unless you are in a suite or a President’s Club member, book a tour here. We were in our bus for our half day and on the road by 9:30 am, we had two mini busses for this tour. Sabrina, our guide was a local and very fortunate for us rode with us in our bus. She informed us that the largest festival of the year concluded last night (I believe it is a month long festival) where they select the Queen of the island for the year. The Queen selected for this year happens to be her cousin, she was very happy and very proud. Sabrina has deep roots here in Rapa Nui and along with that has her version of the history here. So we did more than just visiting site by site and taking the pictures but we were also filled in on the how and why and the techniques used in building and the transporting of these incredible Moai. Our tour visited 4 out of the 5 main sites on the island. We started with the site closest to the ship, this site contains the only Moai that has the coral eyes still set in the statue. From here we visited the Quarry where the statues were originally carved. Carving took place in about 1400 - 1650 AD, using only very basic tools, mainly rocks that are stronger than lava rock used in the building of the statues - this was a fascinating site to see, many finished, many unfinished. From here we visited the site of the 15 standing at the beach site - one of the areas where there was a village back in the day. From here we were off our last viewing site on the beach, were lies the site of an original Moai, most incredible and a most incredible beach - a few guests that have visited here before made this their days destination, back in the day only the royalty were allowed to swim here.
So, the long and the short of it was that the Polynesians had made there way as far east as as Easter island, this is as the Polynesian triangle stemming from New Zealand in the West to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to the East and Hawaii to the North. As with many cultures, the clans developed and grew and here they believed that the Moai statutes were carved and created to show respect to their ancestors. When a clan member became the head of the clan the Moai would begin carving and then get erected, once the leader passes away the eyes would then be set into the eye sockets. The Moai did not face to the sea but the land or moreover the village that it was set to protect. So, like many things, this gets a bit out of control, they begin building bigger Moais, they need more lumber to move them, the theory is that they were actually moved standing up rather than on their backs and put into holes and tilted up. At the end of the day the leaders became obsessed with these which in turn depleted all the resources on the island. This caused a major conflict between the clans and civil war broke out. During this period many of the Moai were toppled over, many clan members died, many fled. This eventually settled where the clans settled their differences and they started living together. After the Europeans came, they did not help the population by introducing many diseases that helped almost wipe out most of the population. According to a wikipedia site the pollution went from 2 to 3 thousand down to base of 111. Today there is a healthy population of about 7,000 and with the help of the Japanese (pretty sure it was them), they came in with many cranes and helped lift, repair and replace the, tourist important, Moai.
Sorry, I kind of went on there but this was such an amazing day, very similar to the day we had last year visiting South Georgia island. We usually don’t see this as a stop on an itinerary and then if you are lucky with the weather you may be able to actually land here. So the anticipation and the history and the fact that this place is so remote, it was indeed a wow day. Sabrina told us at the end of the tour that the new Queen will be a good Queen and will be very good for the island. Why, no not because she is her cousin but rather when it came down to the final selection the other clan’s candidate bowed out, so in essence she won by default, but rather than glowing in it her final speech was about inclusiveness and that we all need to work together. So during the final dances the Queen not only danced with her clan but got up and crossed the room to dance with the opposing clan, something that has never been done before - all were very impressed and they had a wonderful celebration. The bonus of being in Sabina’s van was that she showed us video and pictures from her phone of the nights festivities. As she showed each of us I thought okay this is going to be some local festival party but oh no, the costumes where amazing and the number of dancers was about 250, this was a major event celebration. Sabrina went on to say that if you watch any Polynesian dancing events, you will notice that the troops from Easter Island are always last, because if they went first everyone else would feel let down, why would display the best first. Did I mention we had a most incredible day. We hugged at the end and she mentioned a restaurant with a great deck and good wifi. We enjoyed a couple of beers and a lunch and yes, good wifi. When we paid the bill, I had mentioned that Sabrina had recommended this place to us, the nice gentlemen behind the cash register said, well, she’s the boss, she owns this place. Yes, I don’t think Easter Island is going away any time soon… A few pics of our day, hope you enjoy, we certainly did… Bonus, Rapa Nui Dinner tonight in the Main Restaurant…
Quote of the day - “In our deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” - Ancient Iroquois Maxim
Amazing
ReplyDeleteThank you
M&S