TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND: the mystery of the Moai

MEET THE MOAI when you travel to Easter Island

Standing 20-40’ tall, on the cusp of the south Pacific,

Each unique, representing the natives’ forebears.  This one has an earring, that one a  heavy brow

They’re typically in groups, on their Ahu, or platforms,

And the native Rapa Nuians worship them, as conduits to the gods.

When you travel to Easter Island, spend sunset with the moai.  Sit on the grass before them.  Absorb the heat of the sinking sun, and together, let the darkness fall around you, as one more day closes on this tiny speck in the Pacific.

HOW DID THE FIRST PEOPLE TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND

Historians debate this –

Did they paddle from Polynesia? The shape of their dwellings, fishhooks,  and double-blade paddles are all Polynesian, and one early English sailor reportedly spoke to them in a dialect from Bora Bora.

Or did they travel to Easter Island on tradewinds from the coast of South America?   Their precise stonework clearly looks Incan, and their rongo-rongo tablets (wooden tablets that record history) are also found in Peru's southern reed islands.

They arrived around 400AD.

HOW WILL YOU TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND

You can travel to Easter Island either eastbound from Papeete Tahiti or westbound from  Chile.   One bonus of travel to Easter Island is the stop in Santiago Chile, where you’ll find the closest skiing, the driest desert, international jazz and some of my favorite poetry from Nobel-prize-winner Pablo Neruda.  Check out next week's blog to read 5 Secrets of Santiago.

WHAT’S THE LODGING WHEN YOU TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND?

I know a pair of guides whose guesthouse is ensconced in a bougainvillea-d garden…  who’ll make you fresh guava jam for breakfast… and whose ancestry is almost as storied as the moai themselves.

Her granddad was the archeologist who headed moai restoration in the ‘60s.

His grandmother was the last baby born in a native settlement on Ovahe Beach before the British arrived.

They’ll give you the inside scoop when you travel to Easter Island. Their sister owns a restaurant by the harbor where you can try ceviche!

Their cousin’s a woodcarver whose moai statues, sculpted from the local chinaberry tree, make incredible touchstones to this magical experience.

WHAT’RE THE ACTIVITIES WHEN YOU TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND?

Jeep around the island.  Learn ancient history, and hear stories of modern island life (imagine living 2000 miles from a hospital!)  Walk through the quarry – some of the last moai were abandoned there, and one, at 69’,  was simply too large to move!

Pick bananas in the lava tubes  where natives used to grow small crops,sheltered from trade winds.

Rent a bike.  Travel to Easter Island is safe, and you can strike out of your own to explore the sea caves.

Walk around the ahus. The moai tower over your head, detailed with amazing tattoos, Tim-Burton-esque fingers, and fancy headwear.   Watch their faces – they stare straight out, yet feel so present.

Swim in a turquoise bay encircled by dark lava rocks.

When you travel to Easter Island, take a day on horseback along the remote north coast.  5 hours in the saddle is the only way to see the archeological remains in this road-less area.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN WHEN YOU TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND

It’s a microcosm of world history – populations over-consuming limited resources and falling into self-destruction.

Easter Island had abundant seafood and fertile soil, so populations boomed!  Originally ruled by a kingdom set up along the NW coast, the remainder was divided like a pie, with each tribe getting a wedge.   Their “crust” was the coast where they had access to fish, and they crossed each others land only to access the quarry, Rano Raraku, to carve and excavate their Moai.

Trees were cut down to make charcoal for cooking, and also sleds (which were used to roll the moai as many as 50 miles, to their resting place on the ahus, in each settlement). In the ongoing tribal one-upmanship, the moai got bigger and more numerous, until the island was eventually deforested.

Competition created wars. Tribes toppled each other’s moai and even killed.   By the 1700s, when the first colonial ship arrived on Easter Sunday (thus the name), only about 2000  Rapa Nuians remained.

In the 1920s,  England took over the island for sheep herding.  All remaining natives were relocated into a single town, called Hanga Roa, which is where you’d lodge today.   The island’s entire remaining shoreline was left bare, natural, and strangely undeveloped!

Easter Island remains the most remote, continuously inhabited island, on the face of our earth.

HOW MANY DAYS SHOULD YOU ALLOCATE FOR TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND?

Easter Island is officially part of Chile, 2000 miles and a $700+ airplane ticket from Santiago.   So, stay 3 or 4 nights. It’s a quiet, small, but thought-provoking place.  You’ll want some time to soak it up.

DO YOU NEED A VISA TO TRAVEL TO EASTER ISLAND? 

No Visa, nor special immunizations, needed for travel to Easter Island. 

An appetite for seafood would be useful, though.

Easter Island...a long but worthwhile trek

Easter Island – Rapa Nui in the native tongue --  is a minute volcanic island in the South Pacific with a history magnificent enough to captivate any imagination.  

It holds the designation as the most remote, continuously inhabited island in the world, 

and its most storied occupants are the Moai, great carved beings who are representations of the people’s forebears.

 Your host guides welcome you into their guesthouse at the edge of town, and serve as interpreters for the ancient as well as modern history of their island– 

and then introduce you to a vaquero, or Chilean cowboy, to explore the lava tubes and ruins of the remote northern coast--

 or you can choose to rent a bike and strike out on your own.

Sunset is mellow – around the  cove of  sun-faded fishing boats and overseen by the stately moai, Ahu Tautira. 

And at day’s end,  there’re lantern-til taverns waiting for you, with batik-covered tables full of pisse (pronounced pee-see) straight from the sea and lemony-sharp chilean ceviche.  

All that’s left is a night of wind-blown solitude on your speck in the Pacific. 

Easter Island...the land of the Moai

Easter Island -- Rapa Nui in the native tongue - is a minute volcanic island in the South Pacific with a history magnificent enough to captivate any imagination. The most remote, continuously inhabited island in the world, it lies just over 2000 miles off the coast of Chile, not quite halfway across the Pacific to Tahiti.

The island's most storied occupants are the moai, great carved beings that are representative of the people's forebears. The moia, made of tuff or volcanic rock, were quarried at Rano Raraku, one of the three volcanoes that formed Easter Island.

These statues were carved and transported to the ahu, or burial plots, on which they were placed. They were constructed at the height of Rapa Nuan culture, a society which grew to 15,000, overpopulated, and in which rivalries and shrinking resources begat civil war, which ultimately left all the moai toppled.

The British took over the island in the early 1900s, appropriating all the fields and settlements into sheep herding territory, and relocating the many tribes into one settlement on the northwest coast. This settlement, Hanga Roa, is the one and only town today on Easter Island and the home to the island's 6,000 residents.

Here is a photo tour of my favorite island in the Pacific...

The first view of Rapa Nui, a mostly barren island of 3 volcanoes

The main street of Hanga Roa is lined with street vendors, artisan shops, and farmers, including this vendor of "pisse", an island delicacy from the seas.

The guesthouse, right at the edge of town, is a lush gardened hideaway, hosted by island natives with deep roots...

Biking is the perfect way to explore the island... the parque nationale with the moai,

the lava caves,

and the fishing harbor.

Ramon is an amusing guide, bursting with island history both old (the warring tribes of the 1500's) and new (how long it takes to get to a hospital on the mainland), and a perfect guide for our exploration of the ruin-laden southern coast.

The first stop is the quarry, Rano Raraku, where the moai were carved and transported from (for theories on transport, check out sidebar). You'll see some moai, still connected to the quarry walls, like below:

and others, completely carved, including tattooing and body details, ready to be transported to an ahu:

Here is "El Gigante", measuring 65' and weighing over 270 tons, left in place on the mountainside:

On the south shore, by the quarry, is Ahu Tongariki. It is the largest Ahu on the island, and had as many as 30 moai in its heyday:

Check out the detail on these moai... the elongated fingernails, the unique facial features, and even the decorative earrings:

As you tour the island, you'll see lava tubes, caves which sheltered plantlife from the tireless pacific winds, so which became garden pockets for the tribes, producing banana, tobacco, corn, and grapes:

and on the eastern shore, visit Ovahe Beach. Here is our guide, Ramon, next to the burial mound of his ancestors:

Another great day is on horesback, exploring the rugged, undeveloped northern coast:

Back in Hanga Roa, have your pick of candlelit bistros

serving island varieties of Chile's specialty, ceviche (a raw fish dish, "cooked" in lemon):

My favorite spot was La Taverne du Pecheur:

You'll also want to take a look at the Incan stonework, like here at Ahu Vainapu:

...learn the tale of the Birdman:

and even get your passport stamped at the post office:

Before you go home, you should meet Miguel, who carves models of Ahu Tahai, out of the local chinaberry tree:

Take one home as a touchstone to this minute treasure out in the Pacific!