Chile 2006, part 13 (Easter Island)
What a morning! This has never happened to me, but I guess everything has to happen for the first time.
I don’t know how and what I had calculated in my head, but the night before the planned departure to Easter Island I had somehow figured out that I should leave from Saska’s around 8 o’clock in the morning. She had told me then: “But not later than 8!” Ok, I left the flat at 7.50 and then I could only watch my underground train leave the station. Still, a new one came soon enough. I sat on the train, completely at ease and at some point, when almost everybody had already gone out, I realized it was “my” station. I jumped on my feet like a lightning and got out myself. I went up to the street and headed for the bus whose starting stop was at a nearby parking lot, when I saw the bus leave and no other waiting in line. I decided to go back to the street, as there was the second stop there and in case there was no bus I could take a taxi. Just as I started going there, I saw a new bus coming, so I returned to the parking lot and got on the bus. I asked the driver how long it would take to get to the airport and he said around 40 minutes, as it was a morning rush-hour. And then I finally started to wake up. It was already 8.20 and my flight was LEAVING at 9.25. “Calm down, calm down,” I was saying to myself, but it was all in vain. I started to calculate when and how I can get to the airport, and then I also remembered seeing at the airport that they close flights half an hour before the scheduled departure. Horror and panic! The bus slowly starts, a bunch of people take incredible amounts of time to get in, then the bus stops at 200 stops and collects people who are going to their work around the airport and takes them all around before it is my turn to get off, but I simply don’t dare get out of the bus anywhere along the way, as I am afraid I may not succeed in getting a taxi and then I would be completely in a pickle. The time is passing and I’m trying to think positive imagining myself walking around Easter Island. The time is passing. The passengers keep taking forever when getting on the bus and off the bus. The time is passing. I can see the airport. The bus first turns to drive some people working around and the time is passing. The night before I was too tired to read my Tarot and this morning I didn’t have the time (there! at least a tiny drop of reason in the strange sluggish morning), but because of the lack of any kind of esoteric support and comfort I feel completely without any solid ground under my feet. The time is passing and I’m lost in it. In the meantime I’ve realized we have actually overtaken the bus I first missed. It even made a stop at a place we actually only passed by. We are reaching the airport and it is 9 o’clock. I’m pulling my wheeled bag and I’m walking fast. I’m not running. First I can’t because of the bag and second it wouldn’t realistically change anything. Of course, I got off the bus on the opposite part of the airport from the one in which there are LAN’s checking counters. I’m walking through the airport building and just as a coincidence I glance sideways in the middle of the huge hall and realize that the checking for Easter Island is there. There are still some people around. I’m getting to a LAN employee and ask him something about the checking (whether I can do it all there or need to go to some machines), but he says that the flight has been closed. “Please, don’t tell me that!” He kindly says he is going to check. I’m standing there at the mercy of destiny. As some point, a girl tells me to approach the counter, but she can still not check me. Some other girls working at the counters are packing up their things, getting ready to leave. There are still a couple of passengers near the other counters, but I’m the last one and I’m the “passenger who was late.” After horrifying 5-10 minutes of emptiness and impossibility to think or do anything, they finally say it is “listo,” i.e., everything is fine. I’m getting my boarding ticket and keep thanking everybody around me. The guy I first addressed says it is so only because the flight is slightly delayed. I’m rushing to the gate and there I learn that the flight is actually one hour late. I get into the plane and manage to calm down a little during that hour. The plane then starts to drive along the tarmac, it accelerates and we are up in the air. Going west!
Since I didn’t have any reservations, after my arrival to the Easter Island’s airport and following advice I had received, I paid a little more attention and there I saw Madam Elvira with whom I cut a deal there that I should be staying at her place, as she had a house with rooms to let. I got a room with a bathroom and from my room, across a garden, I had a view of the Pacific which I quite liked, but then again I had no intention of spending my time in the room looking out through the window.
Other than me, Madam Elvira also picked up a French guy at the airport, so after our arrival and settling in our rooms, we first had a nice chat and some beer sitting on the porch and then he went to ask something around and I went back to my room with intention to have a rest. I actually wanted to take a nap in order to absorb the shock I had experienced that morning, but I couldn’t although I was actually quite tired. I did sleep on the plane for some 3 hours, but that was obviously not enough. Since the attempt at napping failed, I got ready and then headed for the centre.
The house was almost at the end of the settlement which is the capital, as well as the only inhabited urban place on Easter Island – Hanga Roa, although a “town” would be a little bit too ambitious a name for it. In front of the house, there was a garden and right on the other side of the fence was a road after which the ground descended towards the ocean. I followed that road for a short visit to Hanga Roa. I first wanted to get a sense of distances through a leisurely walk. I’m very good with orientation, but I always like to get an idea of the distances and the type of “pavement” I’m going to walk on.
Even with this short walk I started to come across the moai. The first one was on Ahu Tautira. Let me explain, the moai is the name for the large stone anthropomorphic statues, i.e., for the human figures which the indigenous population of the Rapa Nui Island used to make and which Easter Island is famous for. The ahu is the name for the platforms on which the moai are arranged. Sometimes there is only one single moai on an ahu and on Ahu Tongariki, for instance, which is the biggest, there are 15 moais. There are relatively a lot of ahus and especially moais around the island, even around the settlement itself. Before, I used to think they were mostly scattered around the rest of the island.
My first walk around the island led me to the museum, since my intention was to make a start in this way by learning a little bit about what I was to see over the next several days. I didn’t stay there long, partially because I had already prepared myself rather well for the visit. Easter Island owes its official name to the first European explorer, some Dutch guy, who in 1722 came across it precisely on Easter, thus appropriately in his mind naming the island. Despite different theories, it is not known exactly what the original inhabitants used to call their island, but the name of Rapa Nui has taken hold of since the second half of the 19th century and the descendents of the original islanders are nowadays called the Rapa Nui. Today, the island belongs to Chile which annexed it in 1888, but its residents are prone to not liking this and would prefer to be independent. They are of the opinion that they could live quite nicely from tourism, even without any assistance from the homeland, as there is literally nothing here that could provide some more serious existence. At some point in time, the British tried to grow some crops and breed sheep here, but with no major success.
Another thing that is important for Easter Island is that it is precisely that – an island. A single one. Not an archipelago. Next to the island there are several rocks protruding from the water, but this is still just one island. It is at the same time the most remote place in relation to its first inhabited neighbour – around 2000 km from Pitcairn Island, which has around 50 residents (this is the island to which the guy who led mutiny on the Bounty went to and in one of the film versions he was played by Mel Gibson) and around 2600 km from another island the main settlement of which has more than 500 inhabitants. Therefore, nowhere on planet Earth are you so separated from other humans as here.
I was, of course, delighted with this specific situation and at the time kept forwarding the montage sent for me by my New York friend (see above). When my brother saw this, he just warned me to take care of what I was doing for otherwise it would be rather awkward if I had to swim back to the continent. I listened to him.
On the other hand, Easter Island is of volcanic origin and it is composed of three main volcanoes (there were more) which during their eruptions threw out lava that cooled down and over time linked together the summits of the volcanoes thus creating the island. Roughly speaking, the island has the shape of a low isosceles triangle, with the base being the longest side and it is around 25 km long. And that’s it. In the middle of the huge ocean.
As for Hanga Roa, in the centre of the place, parallel to the shore, there are a few longer streets which are cut at right angle by many other, short ones. In Hanga Roa, there is a museum, as well as a cathedral, an artisanal market (mercado artesanal), souvenir shops, a number of cafés and restaurants, but mostly residential houses whose gardens were full of bananas, papayas, as well as other crops and flowers. As opposed to the rest of the island, there are a lot of trees and shade in the settlement. In any other place, Hanga Roa would be just a small village, but here it is the capital. And, at the end of the village there is also a cemetery.
I walked through that central part of the settlement, passing eventually by the cemetery as well, and then I came to a couple of ahus that in fact constitute one single ceremonial ahu and that is the Ahu Tahai Complex.
It was restored in 1974 by an American archaeologist, since over time, by the end of the 19th century, all the moais on the island had fallen or had been toppled over. The Ahu Tahai Complex consists of Ahu Vai Uri, Ahu Tahai and Ahu Ko Te Riku. Ahu Vai Uri has, I would say, 4.5 moais. It is not a typo – this 0.5 refers to a moai whose head is missing, although the others have been considerably damaged as well. Ahu Tahai, after which the entire complex has been named, consists of one moai, as well as the nearby Ahu Ko Te Riku, but this latter is particularly interesting as it has been specifically beautified. Namely, it has a red stone “bonnet,” called the pukao, as well as eyes. Some experts believe that all the moais used to have such eyes in the past, but this is not certain. Then again, no other theory here is certain, as nothing reliable is known about the moai and why they were made and what they used to symbolize. Still, as far as the pukaos are concerned, those red bonnets are not an exception in the decorating of the moai and it is also known exactly where the place is at which they were made out of red volcanic rock.
Then I slowly returned to the settlement, went to an internet café and a supermarket to buy some water and fruits, and then took all of that back to my room. I was not particularly hungry, so I had some avocado and salty crackers, which I actually enjoyed quite well. There I met a Polish gentleman, Artur, who was also staying at the bed and breakfast place and we had a great chat.
After that I went for a walk in the opposite direction in relation to Hanga Roa. There I passed by a hotel with bungalows, as well as near a camping site. So, the question of accommodation on Easter Island is easy to solve and one also has a broad choice. In that section, where Hanga Roa is already coming to its end, I enjoyed the wonderful view at big waves that rolled to the shore, at the sun that was slowly descending towards Australia that was somewhere there far behind the horizon, as well as at Rano Kau, one of the volcanoes that constitute the island.
Continuing in the same direction I came across another would-be village and that was in fact a tiny fishermen’s settlement, Hanga Piko, with a dozen houses placed there on account of a deep bay where boats may safely anchor. As everything was tucked in, I suddenly stopped hearing the sound of the waves and could only enjoy the song of crickets. There was also another archaeological site there and an ahu restored in 1998 with one moai standing on it. This is Ahu Te Ata Hero. In its direct proximity there was another moai, but it was just lying on the ground at the end of a clearing where explorations had been conducted.
And then I sat at a nice café at Hanga Piko and had a mango juice. I read a little “Zorro” by Isabel Allende which I had bought in Santiago in order to practice my Spanish, but I could not quite concentrate because of the tiredness I felt. At this time of the year, the sun sets around 9 o’clock in the evening, but I headed for my room way before that time. Still, the fact that I had a room looking out towards the porch and the garden was not so fine after all. That night I was woken up by some people who had a party in front of my window and I had to intervene. I got upset a little bit, but the night is a strange part of the day, especially when you are half-asleep. Be as it may, they did calm down a little and after half an hour of tossing and turning in my bed I managed to fall asleep.