Day 13 - October 12, 2011

Tour day in Easter Island! A full day tour was scheduled for today. We started off the morning with breakfast at our hotel, which was included with the stay. We didn't eat much there as the choices were not too appetizing, and we also didn't trust how old or long the food had been placed out for. We opted for toast, cheese, and some pastries.

The tour started at 9:00am; the tour guide picked us up in a 12 seater tour van and it only took about 15 minutes to go around the town to pick up the other folks. We started off our tour, visiting spots around the Island that had the Moai. It's one thing to see them through pictures on the Internet, but it's another thing to see them in person. They seem fake for some reason, but obviously very real, and astonishing how the people were able to carve these back then.

To give a brief history lecture -- the Rapa Nui people inhabited the Island way back when, around the year 1200. They carved these heads, or Moai as they called them, straight out of the volcano rock (pictures below will show this), ranging from a few meters up to 20 meters, and some weighing in at 80+ tonnes! Every time a chief in their village died, they would move one of these heads to the specific location where the chief was buried, acting like a tombstone. At their peak, there were almost 900 Moai created and transported to their location, and since they were carved out of one specific volcano rock, the Moai were sometimes transported 15kms away. Obviously back then they didn't have transport trucks like we do these days, so it's believed they used rope, tree trunks, and physical strength to pull these massive rocks. Can you believe how long it would take to move these things 15kms?

As the years went by, different tribes formed, specifically the long eared tribe and the short eared tribe. They started a war between each other and as a sign of disrespect, the long eared tribe knocked down each and every one of the Moai, specifically so they would be face down and in a way that the heads would break at the neck. To this day, around 60 Moai have been carefully resurrected and back and its place.

The first set of Moai we saw; these were obviously not restored and kept as they were.

One of the heads of a Moai.

The Moai often had hair made for them out of red volcanic scoria, a type of rock from a volcano located at a certain part of the Island. These were carved separately and rolled to their location.

Site of Ahu Tongariki, where 15 of the largest Moai stand. In 1960, a tsunami swept the Moai further into the Island. It wasn't until 1992 that a Japanese construction company put their efforts into restoring them to where they now stand. They finished restoring them in 1996.

The volcano where the Moai were carved.

The fifth Moai from the right is the tallest Moai that was ever erected. It stands 9 meters tall and ~80 tonnes.

Rano Raraku, the site where the Moai started its construction from the volcanic rock.

These Moai in the surrounding area were ready to be transported to its final destination, but the people never got around to it as the wars broke out.

One of the largest Moai that wasn't finished; almost 21 meters in length.

This is how they started carving the Moai; started out by laying flat on its back, carving out one side, and then doing the other. They would use another type of rock that was harder than the volcanic rock and simply carve and chip away.

Inside the crater of Rano Raraki. You'll see in the distance more Moai, and in the middle above the grass are wild horses. As you can see by the size of the horses and the Moai, this was a big area.

The entrance/exit to the crater. The tour guide cautioned us to come up here at our own risk in case the horses came stampeding through.

A magical rock believed to have special powers. The tour guide put a compass against and around the rock, and it would keep spinning around (the compass, not the tour guide). The guide wasn't convinced the rock had powers, just simply minerals inside the rock that would cause the compass to redirect itself.

One of two beaches on Easter Island.