If you ever get the chance to visit Easter Island try to score a window seat on the right hand side of the plane. And try to fly in during the day. The view over the crater lake of Rano Kau as the jet makes it final approach is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen through an airplane window.
The flight path from Santiago sees the plane fly past the island and perform a U-turn back towards Hanga Roa, Easter Island’s airport.
Tiny Easter Island, just 163 square kilometres, is a speck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s nearest inhabited neighbor is Pitcairn Island, more 2075 kilometres away. The Chilean capital of Santiago is 3756 kilometres away, or a flight of just over five hours.
Rano Kau, Easter Island’s majestic volcano, and its high cliffs emerges from the vast ocean like a precious jewel. It is a glorious site to welcome visitors to Easter Island.
Most visitors arrive to explore Easter Island’s most famous attraction, its mysterious Moai. The the ancient monolithic statues have puzzled scientists and archaeologists for generations since Europeans first saw them in the 1700s. Around 1000 Moai dot the island, most of them lying flat on their faces.
A good way to explore the mysterious statues of Easter Island, and discover their history, is to join a guided tour. I joined local guide Jan for an informative, full-day tour of Easter Island’s south coast.
Jan is a Rapa Nui man who has worked around the world with archaeologists and historians and has studied the island’s history and culture in great depth.
Before we begin exploring the island, Jan describes the sad recent history of the Rapa Nui people. The Rapa Nui lived isolated for centuries. Europeans first encountered the island when Dutch sailors spotted it on Easter Sunday 1722. The Spanish came later that century. The Rapa Nui people were decimated by disease and many were kidnapped by slavers.
The Rapa Nui population at one point shrank to just 111 people. All of the Rapa Nui people today are descendants of those 111 survivors. Jan reckons that today there would only be between 10 and 20 people of 100 per cent Rapa Nui ethnicity still living on Easter Island. Most of the island’s 5700 residents are Chilean.
We learn more about the history of the Rapa Nui people at our first stop at Ahu Akahanga. Thirteen Moai lie face down in the area. It is considered one of the most important historic sites on Easter Island because legend has it the first Rapa Nui King, Hotu Matu’s is buried here.
According to Jan, while aspects of the cultural history of Easter Island are unclear, there are a number of points historians and archaeologists generally agree on. Moai were carved from volcanic rock and transported to villages where they were erected on a platform known as an Ahu. It is generally agreed that the Moai were portraits of important people. They were erected to watch over the village.
During a period of civil war around the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the island’s Moai were toppled. The famous rows of standing Moai that draw visitors to Easter Island today have all been re-erected since the arrival of Europeans, some as recently as the 1990s, as we discover at Tongariki.
At Tongariki, a Japanese company restored statues that had first been toppled during civil wars and then scattered by a Tsunami in 1960. They were re-erected in the 1990s and are now Easter Island’s best known ahu. Fifteen huge Moai loom over visitors. Signs warn visitors to stay off the ahu.
Not everybody pays attention and I can see a few people walking on the ahu and touching Moai. It’s not only people breaking the rules. Around 6000 wild horses roam Easter Island and to them Moai make perfect scratching posts.
Historians and anthropologists also agree on where the Moai came from. The vast majority were carved in single pieces from volcanic rocks at a quarry on the slopes of Rano Raraku volcano.
We know this because countless Moai are still here in various stages of production. Some complete Moai were left standing. Erosion over the years has buried the Moai, leaving many to conclude that the famous ‘Easter Island heads’ are just that. But excavation works prove the Moai have bodies.
The largest Moai ever carved – at 20 metres tall – is among the many statues still attached to the side of the volcano. As I hike to the top of the volcano I can see back down to the sea and the row of Moai on the ahu at Tongariki.
There are more Moai ahead in the distance but access to this part of the island is restricted. The crater lake is a source of drinking water for some of the island’s wild horses. Visitors need to be very wary of getting too close. We can see some grazing on the far side of the crater. The group keeps it promise to Jan not to wander around the crater rim.
Something that the historians and anthropologists can’t agree on is how the statues were moved. Jan shows us a statue that was the subject of an experiment by famed Norwegian explorer and anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl. A rope mark around the statue’s waist is testament to Heyherdahl’s theory that the Moai were dragged by rope across the island’s rocky ground to their ahu.
According to Jan, elders who witnessed this in the 1950s told him “You are wrong Mr Heyerhahl”, insisting that the statues had “walked” across the island from the volcano to their villages.
How the Moai were transported has baffled scientists ever since the Moai were first seen by Europeans. No fewer than five theories have been floated, including extra terrestrial intervention. This animation, produced by National Geographic (see below) explains the different theories. The short answer to how the Moai moved is that we don’t know. Short of building a time machine to go and see for ourselves, we may never know.
The largest Moai ever successfully transported and erected on an ahu, known as Paro Moai, is around 12 metres tall. He is now face down, having been toppled from Ahu Te Pito Kua. Nearby Jan takes us to see another of Easter Island’s mysteries, the strange magnetic rock Te Pito Kua.
Jan uses my partner’s compass to demonstrate its magnetic properties. Its needle swayed all over the place. The rock is also said to tingle if you place your hands on it. We all tried but I wasn’t convinced I could actually feel anything. I hope though that the force of Easter Island will be with me, always.
The last tour stop is at Anakena Beach. Thor Heyerdahl began the practice of re-erecting Moai here. The Anakena Moai wear topknots on their heads, an additional flourish added to the more recent monoliths. These Moai are also very well preserved, having been buried in the sand.
The cult of the Moai ended in the late 18th century and early 19th century when the statues were toppled. The Moai aren’t the only example of a Rapa Nui cult. Next came the cult of the Birdman.
To be continued…
From the Travels with my Teddy archive. Louise visited Easter Island in November 2012.