Easter Island, Day Tour - Tongariki

Next stop is Tongariki, a restored site with the largest Ahu of standing Moai.





Some of the Moai have red hat-like stones on their heads. These are actually their topknots. Ancient Chiefs used to dye their topknots red.

Easter Island, Day Tour - The Quarry

Next we headed out to the Quarry, heaps and heaps of Moai out here!
You can just make out the Moai dotting the landscape at the base of the hill.







No touching the Moai...

This big fellow is the largest (non finished) Moai that measures 21 metres long.



This old fellow is considered to be one of the oldest Moai on the island. It’s the only one that’s been found with feet, and its head is more in proportion to the rest of its body. (He even has a pet dog...)

Easter Island, Day Tour - Akahanga

Todays agenda involved a day tour, time to get out there and meet some big stone heads!

Pickup was at 9.15am, so I climbed into the minivan, camera at the ready, with my fellow tourists. We were made up of one Australian couple (the other English speakers), four Frenchies and two Spanish ladies. We had two tour guides, one who spoke French and the other (Francesca) who spoke Spanish and English.

We learnt a lot about the Moai (pronounced moe-eye) that day.
These large statues were built by the ancestors of the Rapa Nui to watch and protect over the villages. Each Moai was built to represent a chief or high ranking official. Once carved out at the quarry, the Moai was then moved down to the large stone platforms, then their eyes were carved which then made them ‘alive’.

Over the years, there were many inter-tribal wars and the first things to go were the Moai. As they were the protectors of each tribe, it made sense to topple over those belonging to your opposition so that they would then be without the protection of their Moai.

Over the years many have been restored and are standing again, however, there are still many that have been left toppled. Fascinating stuff!



The first ancient village we visited was called Akahanga. This was apparently one of the oldest villages and is an unrestored site. It was out near the coast and the landscape looked very stark.

If you look very carefully you can see a toppled Moai.


Some of the houses in these coastal villages built houses that were shaped like houses and were called (surprise surprise) Boat Houses. The holes in the brick held bamboo which were used as supports.



An example of a rock garden, the rocks were used to help prevent weeds from growing - my kind of garden!


The Ahu (or Platform) with the toppled Moai.

Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

The red-eye flight to Easter Island felt very very long as I’d managed to burn the bejimines out of my legs from too much pool lounging at Tahiti. Some would say serves me right for gloating…

We landed on Easter Island around 11.30am local time, so the day was bright and cheery. I, on the other hand, was not. Late night flights and lack of sleep were certainly starting to take toll. So a quick check-in and some well needed sleep was the first thing on the itinerary.

I awakened fresh and ready to explore about 3 hours later. First point of call, the all important currency exchange.

A little abit about the place.
Easter Island (local name – Rapa Nui) belongs to Chile. All cars have Chilean license plates, the local currency is Pesos and passer-bys have friendly smiles and “holas”. With a population of between 4-5000 people, it seems that most live around the main township which has one main street with a few smaller ones. This main street has my hotel at one end (The Manavai), the towns one petrol station at the other, and numerous cafes, restaurants, mini-marts and souvenir shops in between.

Probably the closest thing to a beach on the island


Horses grazing on the main street


After changing some money over, I wondered down to the shore where a stage was being setup for a local festival/carnival called "Tapati". Later I learnt that Tapati, a two week event, was essentially a competition between two young ladies to be crowned “Miss Rapa Nui 2010”. The Polynesian culture is very strong in Easter Island, so the competition activities (team based) were made up of things like singing, dancing (hula), canoeing, swimming, carving etc which would then get judged and accumulate points. At the end of the two weeks, the side with the most points won. This certainly made for some great entertainment at night.

Stage Setup


Singing


Special thanks to Kim, the American lady who runs the hotel I was staying at called the Manavai. She have me some fantastic recommendations on places to eat and a few key places that I should visit. The Manavai was comfortable and the rooms were more chalet in style.


I had the local fish for dinner deliciously served with a light green curry sauce and sweet potato and ginger mash at a restaurant calle Au Bout de Monde. Washed down with a couple of coronas, watching the sun go down, I was in bliss.

My view while eating dinner


Watching the sunset over a corona…

I've come to clean ze pool....

I awoke to Sunday and managed to drag my sorry, tired arse out of bed. After an over priced brekkie of toast and coffee (admittedly delicious coffee), I decided to find some sort of activity for the day, ie half day tour, go for a surf, go for a shop etc. Unfortunately being Sunday, EVERYTHING was closed! Couldn’t even head down to the closest surf beach as the torrential downpour the night before had turned the waves to crap.

So it looked like it was going to be a day lounging by the pool for me. A real hardship as the edge of the pool meets the ocean and the view at the inpool bar overlooks one of the smaller islands just past the reef.

Some photos for your viewing pleasure…




Different angle of the pool


View of the island across the reef


From the back of the bar


View from my deckchair


Papeete's shoreline


A delicious lunch of three types of raw fish and fruit salad was happily consumed.



Dinner also comprised of (you guessed it!) the local fish… (didn’t get a photo of this meal sorry, didn’t want to look too much like a lame photo taking tourist haha!)

No time for much else as the plane to Easter Island was taking off that night.
See you there.

Arriving in Tahiti

Our plane landed in Tahiti around 9.50pm. Special thanks to Lou Lou (the friendly Hawaiian shirt clad Tahiti fellow) who told me abit about Tahiti and helped me brush up on my French. Note to travellers, if you ever fly with Tahiti Nui airlines, don’t be scared to try the fish, its delicious!

Once we disembarked, the rain came down in amounts that would be almost considered illegal in Melbourne. The temperature was sitting somewhere in the high 20’s, most people were covered in a light sheen of sweat after a couple of minutes because of the extreme humidity.

3 locals complete with ukuleles created an island sound-track as beautiful brown Tahitian women handed out flowers tuck to behind your ear – and this was just at the airport!

It was so weird seeing cars driving on the wrong side of the road. It was a little while before I stopped expecting head-on collisions.

The Manava Suite Resort is exactly what you’d expec tof an island resort. Large water-features, island themed deco, shirtless large bellied porters wearing nothing but pareo’s (sarongs, lava lavas) and thongs (jandals, flip flops). The rooms and facilities were all ultra modern due to the place recently opening in March’09.






The shower head was half the size of the shower room!



This made for a very luxurious guilt-free shower before collapsing in bed in exhaustion.

Leg 2 of the journey complete!

Just checking in...

Just a quick note to let all know that I'm am in fact still alive and not lost in some island paradise somewhere...

As you can see I am finally back online, so please stay tuned, updates are pending!