Ranu Raraku

I headed back to Anakena Beach this morning. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is trying to catch the various sites I visit in just the right light for photos. The sky was crystal clear this morning and I got to Anakena at about 9:00; since the beach is on the East side of the island, it was the perfect time for photos. According to Rapa Nui legend, Anakena Beach is where the Polynesian king, Hotu Matua, landed with the original settlers of the island. On a small hill overlooking the beach there stands a single moai that was re-erected by Thor Heyerdahl (the Kon Tiki guy) with the help of a few islanders. Anakena is also famous on the island for its powdery white sand and favorable surf. The beach was completely deserted when I arrived, and it was the perfect opportunity to snap a few photos of the moai on the coast. I spent an hour or so circling the moai and snapping picture after picture; enjoying the soft white sand under my bare feet and the warm, breezy, crystal clear weather.

Until late this morning I had been impressed with what I had seen on Easter Island, but to be perfectly honest, it hadn’t quite lived up to my expectations. That changed pretty quickly when I visited Rano Raraku this afternoon. Rano Raraku is a small, dormant volcano on the southeast end of the island that the Rapa Nui people used as a quarry to extract lava rock to carve the moai out of. Apparently the facial features of the moai were carved before being completely extracted, then the moai would be removed and transported to other parts of the island. The result is that there are several giant moai at Ranu Raraku that are only partially carved out of the rock. The real attraction at Rano Raraku, though, is the 40+ standing moai scattered across the face of the volcano and inside the crater. I walked slowly through narrow paths leading past the moai, observing each facial expression and the tilts that each one had naturally taken on. Most moai looked pensive and stoic, although a few sported wide smiles. One moai had tipped over to an angle about 45 degrees to the ground, and the narrow pathway led directly beneath his gigantic eyes and nose. While at Ranu Raraku I happened to bump into a 50ish couple named Steve and Debbie, who are staying at my hotel, and spent the rest of my time there exploring with them. After wandering through the moai on the front side of the volcano we ventured up the slope and into the large crater on the other side. The crater is filled with plants and a gigantic lake in the middle, and on one edge of the crater sit several large moai. I enjoyed seeing a few more moai, but my favorite part of the crater was hiking to the top on the East end of it, where we had a fantastic view of Ahu Tongariki down below.

After a quick second visit to Ahu Tongariki with Steve and Debbie I stopped at the Papa Vaka Petroglyphs, a giant basalt slab in the ground covered with carvings of tuna, sharks, turtles, and canoes. Further inland I stopped at Ahu Akivi, an ahu with seven moai. Ahu Akivi is unique for several reasons. First, it is the only ahu that isn’t on the coast (or at least the only one I that I know of). Also, it is the only ahu to feature moai facing the sea. Very little is known about any of the ahu or moai on Easter Island, but one notable observation about Ahu Akivi is that the moai are oriented such that on the summer and winter solstices they are exactly facing the sunset. On my way back to the main road I stopped at Puna Pau, a quarry used by the ancient islanders to obtain red lava rock for moai topknots, called pukao. It was interesting to me to see a handful of giant topknots scattered around, but I was more impressed with the view of Hanga Roa from the top of the hill at Puna Pau. After spending the past couple of days exploring the island, it’s nice to get a view from above and see the little world I’ve been wandering around in.

Earlier today Steve and Debbie recommended that I visit a small recreation of an ancient Rapa Nui airport, so I decided to make that my last stop of the day. I knew roughly where it was from what they told me, so I cruised past Hanga Roa on my scooter and up the edge of a hill on the opposite side of the airport. I wasn’t completely sure that I was headed in the right direction, so I was a little discouraged that the road kept climbing higher and higher up the edge of the hill, with no village in sight. After driving high enough that Hanga Roa was a few thousand feet below, I finally noticed the beginning of a trailhead on the side of the road. I figured that I might not find the village I was looking for, but at least I’d have some other serendipitous adventure. I walked only fifteen or twenty feet up the trail before coming to the edge of a massive volcanic crater. The crater was at least a thousand feet across and was covered in bright green grass with hundreds of tiny ponds in the base of the crater hundreds of feet below. The opposite end of the crater had eroded away such that a giant opening revealed the wide blue expanse of ocean stretching south of the island. I recognized the sight from a few pictures I had seen around town, and realized I was at the top of the gigantic volcano Rano Kau. I hadn’t planned on visiting Rano Kau today, but the sight was incredibly scenic, and I took about a half-hour to hike along the edge of the crater and enjoy the sweeping views.

After hiking back to the trailhead I rode my scooter to the top of the road, only a quarter-mile or so away. As it turned out, I had been on the right road all along, and the village, called ‘Orongo’, was right at the top. Unfortunately the village had just closed for the day, but I happened to bump into Julia and Katarina, the two Polish girls I met yesterday, and followed them back into town for dinner. We ate at a place on the coast called ‘Au Bout du Monde’, and sat at a table that gave us a perfect view of the sun setting over the ocean as we ate. I ordered shrimp with rice, bananas, and a thick ginger sauce, and talked for an hour or so with Julia and Katarina. Naturally, when I’m traveling I tend to meet a lot of other people who love to travel, and we all shared some of our favorite travel stories. Julia and Katarina told me about their recent visit to the Galapagos islands, and I told them about visits to Angkor Wat, Bhutan, and Kruger National Park. We also shared some awkward and embarrassing travel stories; I told them about waking up at 4:30 this morning to catch the sunrise on the other end of the island (an hour too early due to me misunderstanding what time-zone I was in), only to realize halfway there that I didn’t have enough gas to make it, then turning around and going back to sleep at the hotel.