Rapa Nui festival

We are now well aquainted with the island. There are only two main roads with a few side tracks that circumnavigate the island starting at Hanga Roa, the "capital city". The car we rented was a 4WD that was showing it´s age, 5yrs. The steering has been hammered by the holes in the road, the windows clogged with the lava dust that covers the area and do not work easily and the air conditioning fan does not work at all. Trying to open the rear door defeated me so we just placed all the bags on the back seat. The engine moved us forward and the brakes stopped us before falling over the edge, so we were good to go.

For your information:
Moai= mostly male stone figures ( between 2 and 21 m high) with elongated heads, prominent noses,  heavy brows,small mouths

Ahu= a religious platform on which one or more Moai were standing.

Our first trip was to Anekena, a beach at the northern end of the island. The main highway runs straight up the middle of the island and is in quite good condition, and sealed. Anekena is overlooked by five Moai and is one of two white sandy beaches. The rest of the island is surrounded by rugged lava cliffs which are  constantly being battered by the ocean. There is no visible tide but the wave patterns vary throughout the day and makes for some great spectacular sights. We parked on one of the cliffs overlooking the sea and watched the rolling waves for a while as they came into contact with terra firma after travelling 4000kms unopposed. Fantastic.

Then it was time to visit the Orongo National Park. This is the "Birdman" ceremonial village perched on top of a vulcano, Rano Kau. The road up to it was not too comfortable as the `grader´ had not been by for a while. There are partly restored houses made of overlapping stone with the roof covered in earth where the ceremonial priests lived.

The village sits on the edge of a 300m cliff.There are many petroglyphs carved into the lava stone. The climax of the cults ceremonies was a competition to obtain the first egg of the sooty tern which bred on the small island of Moto Nui. Each contestant would descend the cliff face and with the aid of a reed raft, swim out to the island. They would stay there, a day, a week or longer until the birds arrived.  He who brought the first egg back to Orongo became the "birdman" for the following year.

The last ceremonies took place around 1866 or 1867.
Next to the Orongo ceremonial village is the perfectly round crater lake,it looks like a giant witches cauldron with floating grassy mini islets- beautiful on the deep blue water.

 


In the evening we watched the sunset overlooking the bay with a Moai in the foreground. We watched the film, Rapa Nui, which tells the history of the islands inhabitants. It describes their culture and why the Moai statues were carved and subsequently toppled over and all about the bird man ceremony which followed the moai religion.

The Moai at Tongeriki have been restored and I made Angela get up at 4o´clock to drive there to see the sunrise over the 15 Moai. I remembered it wrong! The sunrise was at 7.30, but we had the stars to keep us company. We knew it was close when 20 or so people turned up at 7o´clock.

After having some breakfast,we visited the vulcano, Rano Raraku, where the Moai were carved out of the steep crater sides. There are some unfinished carvings to be seen still attached to the cliffs. You have to ask yourself, "why" and then speculate, "how". These statues must weigh tons, and they are all over the island. The road along the south east side of the island runs along the coast and passes many Ahu sites, some with their Moai erected, but most of them laying down.

While visiting one Ahu, we were confronted with 20 galloping horses and we had to run back to the car for safety. The island has few fences and the cattle and horses roam quite freely.
Most of the Ahu have a supporting wall built with rough larva stone loosely laid on top of each other,but one has been built using carved stone with straight lines and angles representative of those found in the Inca temples.  Visitors to the island perhaps before Europeans arrived.

The road along the coast was sealed, but was in desperate need of repair. At the northern end they obviously ran out of tarmac and the last 10kms were over rocky uneven terrain which certainly rattled our brains and we were glad to reach Anekena beach for a rest.  We took the main road back to Hanga Roa so our brains could settle again.
We have been following the festival and took hundreds of pictures but the internet is very weak and slow that we have problems getting on-line. Uploading the text has been strenuous enough but pictures have been dificult. More pictures as we have time.

 

Hello again, I am sitting in the car next to the telephone exchange and have a good signal.

Some pictures that we have taken on our drive about.

The festival goes on for two weeks and covers a lot of different sports and cultural events.

The two competitors trying to become queen have to excel in several areas. 

 

Dancing is only part of it.

 

Body painting and expaining the history behind it.

 

There are many more pictures . We watched some crazy people ride banana tree trunks down the side of a vulcano. No injuries, but they were glad to get down in one piece. 

Some luckier contestants just had to throw home made spears.

while others ran a road relay carrying bananas, not an easy thing to do.

 with the spectators looking on.

Thats all for now, the car is overheating and so am I.
The festival to be continued, but as I often say, "thats another story".
See ya, Terry.