Easter Island / Rapa Nui / Isla de Pascua

This isn't current news. I visited Easter Island (also known as Isla de Pascua in Spanish, and Rapa Nui in the indigenous language) in April this year. The reason I've not blogged this sooner is that it is difficult to know what to say about it. It is the most interesting and mystical place I have ever visited, and I've been around a bit.

Easter Island is officially territory of Chile, however, it is far, far from the mainland, in the middle of the South Pacific ocean. Indeed, it is of the most isolated places on Earth. The indigenous population, the Rapa Nui, originally came from one of the islands nearest neighbours, Tahiti, over 2,000 miles away. However, they found themselves stranded on a small island, isolated from the rest of the world. Under these conditions they developed a fascinating religion and culture, personified by the hundreds of stone statues they produced. It is the highly iconic statues that make this small island one of the most important archaeological sites on the planet. However, its isolation means that it is not besieged with tourists.

Easter Island's nearest neighbours are Tahiti (4249 kilometers away),  Pitcairn Island (2,083 Kilometers away) or Chile (3,278 kilometers away). 

There are plenty of good sources of information on Easter Island, I recommend  'Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island' by Steven Roger Fischer. I'm not going to give my cack-handed summary here, just some annotated photographs.

There are hundreds of moai (statues) on ahu (sacred platforms) all over the island, in fact nearly 900 moai have been catalogued. The ones in this image are located close to Hanga Roa, the only town on the island.

The ahu and moai near Hanga Roa are close enough that you can walk there in the evening to watch the sunset behind them.

Ahu Tongariki has the most impressive collection of moai. There are 15 on the ahu and they are some of the largest on the island, one weighing 86 tonnes.

Two of the 15 moai of Ahu Tongariki.  The one on the left is wearing a top-knot.  These are made from red scorcia, and came from a different quarry to the bodies. Originally many would have had white eyes made from coral too.

A broken moai in the foreground Ahu Tongariki in the background. This broken one was probably damaged in transit and abandoned. 

It is important to consider the position of the sun when visiting the island's many ahu, get it wrong and you can't see any detail. This picture was taken at Ahu Tongariki just after sunrise.

Ranu Rarako is the volcano where most of the moai were made. When it was abandoned, 397 moai were left unfinshed, untransported or broken. The large number of statues on the hillside make this the most visually mysterious place on the island.

Most of the moai at Ranu Rarako are only visible from the chin up, the bodies have become buried with time.

Many people dwell on the mystery of how the moai were moved, but really that isn't such an interesting question, given that we know that they were moved. Far more interesting is what led the Rapa Nui people to destroy their statues. Every single one was toppled and many deliberately broken between the first contact with the West in 1722 and a later visit in 1868. The majority, like this one, remain in their toppled state.  These are perhaps the more poignant sites, compared to the spectacular sites re-erected for tourists, such as at Ahu Tongariki.

The archaeology and history isn't all about moai and ahu. The volcanic crater at Ranu Kao was the home the Bird Man Cult, a religious practice in which an annual leader was selected based on a dangerous expedition to climb down cliffs, swim to an islet and find a sooty tern egg. The village of Orongo on the edge of the crater has numerous stone houses and petroglyphs, many of 'Makemake' the god of the time.

Department of Fatherland Security

I made a return trip to the UK recently, my route between Quito and Manchester involved flight connections in Miami and New York. Flying via the USA was the cheapest option, but not the simplest. Just to make a flight connection on their soil, you need a visa. On checking in for the return to Quito, I was issued my boarding cards, each had ‘SSSS’ printed on the bottom. This is the code to alert airport staff that I’m to be given extra security checks. Travelling by air in the USA is a hassle as it is. Since 9/11 security has gone through the roof. Many years ago, but post 9/11, while waiting to board a flight in San Francisco I noted that everybody in the queue without a US passport was pulled out and given extra checks. So on this trip, as on that one, I was to be frisked, swabbed and questioned, a lot. To add to the suspicion, I had a sword in my checked baggage. Legal to travel with, but a red rag to already paranoid airport security.

Whether you are covertly singled out for additional checks or not, you can expect to be mildly bullied by little men in uniforms, who can be as surly as they wish. They represent an unpleasant mix of bureaucracy and authoritarianism. One such official that I noted in Miami, had his stamp for approving passports ready on his right hip and on his left hip a pistol. But for him daily work is not just a matter of stamping passports and presumably shooting the odd foreigner. Just to transit at a US airport you have to consent to being photographed and also have your finger prints taken. This is routine. While you are going through this pseudo-arrest procedure, they will bark odd questions or commands at you, and combine it with a surreal politeness: “Sir, did I say that you could move? Well don’t move then, I’m busy at the moment, Sir, I will tell you when I am ready for you to move”. I’ve never seen this arrogance in border guards anywhere else, and I’ve visited about 40 different countries.

On arrival in Quito, I found that in transit one of my bags had been ripped open by US security, this was the one with the sword in it. A small sticker informed me that under US law they have the right to damage bags during inspections. The bag wasn’t locked, it just had zips, but they didn’t use the zips, because under US law they don’t have to. Tossers.

'Embrace the red, white and blue reich'