“That’s it?” I say, looking outside.

“Yeah.. I love her, but she’s not that big.”

The guy next to me on the six hour plane ride is pure California, an older surfer — one of those guys you see in airports with the massive surfboard suitcase — but not necessarily an older hippie despite the similarity in accents.  We’ve talked a bit over the course of these past six hours we’ve spent racing the sun across time zones.  Despite being one of Cali’s native sons, he apparently has enough family and friends out this way to keep him coming back annually.

The diminutive oval of land is clearly visible from end to end through my window, a lonely speck of green and yellow earthtones lost in the vastness of the Pacific.  Up here, the ocean is an endless, flat plane of dark blue, encroaching on such a small morsel of land with no mercy.  Easter Island is the most remote inhabited island on Earth — the nearest other piece of land supporting any kind of life is 1,289 miles away — and seeing it below me now hammers in just how daunting the Polynesian colonization of the island by canoes was 1700 years ago.

The island received its current English name upon being “discovered” on Easter Sunday, 1722 by the Dutch, and its Spanish name “Isla de Pascua” is simply a translation of the English.  Rapa Nui is its Polynesian name, though that title’s only been in use since the late 1800s.  Prior to that, a substantial portion of the island’s inhabitants was wiped out, taking most of Easter Island’s history (and even its original name) along with it.

What is known is that the island was originally colonized by Polynesians in the first few centuries of the first millennium, and that the seemingly impossible voyage of close to 3000 miles was taken in large, double canoes.  Chickens, dogs and several types of plants not originally native to Rapa Nui were brought along on the journey as well.  While the island culture grew and evolved on its own, a Polynesian speaker on Captain Cook’s eighteenth century visit was able to communicate with the locals, showing that the language at least hadn’t altered terribly in the one and a half millennia they’d been separated.

Moai, the giant stone heads that Easter Island is most known for, were clearly part of island-wide religious worship, though no documentation on their use or meaning remains.  By the mid-1700s, the religion associated with the heads was no longer in favor, and a massive civil war on the island led to their toppling.  By the middle of the next century, only two remained standing.  The past twenty years have seen a major effort between the local government, Chile and other countries like Japan in re-raising the statues to their previous prominence, though it’ll take time before all are restored.

Welcome to Easter Island

The Polynesian influence shows itself in the form of locals greeting the recently arrived tourists with leis and smiles.  I get neither, as both are reserved for visitors to whatever hotels are sponsoring the warm, island greetings.  No signs bear my name, and thus, I step out of the airport un-leid.  Unlike most international airports, no urban sprawl surrounds this one; once through its gates, I find myself on a gravel road with only the occasional houses or pousadas lined up to either side.  Two horses stand in the middle of the street — a mother and its calf, apparently — though they move away apprehensively when I approach within touching distance.

No massive, multi-story hotel complexes or resorts are allowed on the island, though smaller boutique hotels are available if you’ve got the disposable income.  I don’t, and opt for one of the few hostels listed online — still highway robbery at almost twenty dollars a night, but this far from the rest of the world, everything’s at a premium.  There’s no hot water, sand’s in the bed and I’m sharing the small room with three other people, but it beats the pricier options.

Two scooters sit by the entrance to the dining room — the best means of an individual making his way about the island, I’ve been told — but renting them proves harder than anticipated.  Oh, they’re available, but no one can seem to find the keys to either.  Just three “blocks” from the airport, the hostel’s far enough on the outskirts of Hanga Roa (the only official town on the island) that it’s a good ten minute walk to the nearest overpriced mercado.  Five minutes more to one of the few Internet cafes on the island for a quick email check.  Near as I can tell, there are three of such cafes on the island, but only one stays open with any reliability, and there’s always a line.  People are very laid back here.  On a possibly related note, there’s a ubiquitous scent of marijuana throughout town.

For an island, beaches are in short supply here, with most of the shore being comprised of unforgiving rocks and strong currents.  The two beaches that best fit the idyllic definition of the word are both in the northeast, well out of convenient walking distance.  Of those two, one is technically closed for undescribed reasons.  Here in Hanga Roa, a small patch of black rock gives way to sand gracefully enough to allow cautious swimming (too many rocks to dive about freely), and I take off my shirt and sandals and make my way out to waist depth, stopping to rest my hand on what I first take to be a smooth rock.

The turtle doesn’t care for being used as support, but it is still one of the slower marine animals out there and even a speedy departure leaves me with enough time to gawk at its size as it flippers away.  Easily three feet long, the unexpected reptile dwarfs nearly every other sea turtle I’ve come across, and nearly matches the size of the land-based tortoises I’d come across in the Galapagos.  I swim with it, my left hand resting softly — hopefully without perturbing it too much — over its shell, until it enters a patch of prohibitively uncomfortable rocks.

An elderly woman sitting on the rocks by the shore has been watching my entire interaction with a bemused look on her face.

“Tortuga!” she says!

“Si” I smile.

Further out, gringo surfers lay on their boards waiting for waves.  Northward up the beach, I catch a glimpse of my first moai, the large, granite heads for which the island is most famous.  Just past it, something even more interesting catches my eye.

Mike Rapu Diving Center

Prior to leaving for South America, I got my PADI certification with the intention of scouring the oceanic depths of the continent with as much excitement as I traversed the parts above sea level.

This has not happened.  I did not SCUBA the Galapagos.  I completely failed to explore the watery depths off the coast of Rio.  I avoided entirely an option to cold-water dive in the icy waters near Antarctica.  (To be fair, the last one was never really in the running).  PADI demands regular application of its SCUBA skill every six months before a refresher course is recommended, so the stars are aligned to get me in the water today.

Sixty dollars gets a one-hour trip, with close to thirty minutes of that time spent in the water.  The wetsuit is tight, and feels balmy against my skin, but that’s one of the hazards of renting anything skin-tight.  With the addition of my BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) vest, tank and weights, I make heavy-footed robot steps towards the boat for a quick refresher on all the things I can do to avoid a slow, unpleasant underseas death.

My guide speaks more than passable English as he goes over my gear: Weights - for countering the natural buoyancy of my body and wetsuit.  Tank - it has oxygen in it.  Kind of necessary for living.  Gauges - to keep track of time, depth and, most importantly, oxygen.  When that little black arrow closes in on a section of gauge in red, it’s time to run (metaphorically of course — a rapid ascent from the depths is actually one of the worst things you can do to yourself while diving).  BCD - Buoyancy Control Device.  This vest ties the whole operation together.  Tank goes on the back/Person on the front.  Equally important, however, is a direct attachment from the tank to a small bladder of air contained within the vest.  This allows the diver to control buoyancy (how “floaty” he is).  By meticulous filling and emptying of air within the BCD, divers can attain neutral buoyancy, allowing a zero-gravity-like sensation of simply hovering in any one spot.  Without this, SCUBA would be far less enjoyable and far more exhausting.

Dodging surfers, our boat cuts out from the dock to a position just a quarter mile from shore.  I’m told we’re doing a standard rear entry, and my guide demonstrates by sitting on the edge of the boat and simply falling, tank first, into the water, making a point of keeping his legs firmly upright so as to not catch his flippers on the boat.  His hands keep his mask and the tube providing oxygen firmly attached to his face.  I do my best to mimic his well-practiced drop, and other than a moment’s awkwardness re-orienting myself in the water, I ease into it with surprising grace.

After I wordlessly reassure him by not flailing about uncontrollably, the guide signals and we empty the air from our BCD to begin descent.  With no air in the BCD to provide buoyancy, the weights do the work for us as we slowly drop.  My attention, then, is spent fully upon careful, regular breathing and dealing with any compression-related sinus pains.  As we drop, the pockets of air within us become more dense, often leading to occasional pains around the eyes and ears from these pockets compressing.  This is alleviated by closing the nostrils with the fingers on one hand and “blowing” hard to “pop” the ears.

Ten meters down and we’ve reached a plateau of sorts.  Easter Island isn’t particularly known for its coral, though the alien landscape is still more than interesting enough for a half hour of swimming around.  More importantly, a lack of any rivers or waste dumping into the ocean combined with a shortage of plankton makes for extremely good visibility.  I watch the guide at all times, following his lead.  The few times I look away long enough to miss something important he’s trying to impart to me, I hear a loud metallic thunk — the sound of his hitting the back of his tank hard with something metal.  Sound travels fairly well down here, all things considered.

Fish swim by, unconcerned with our presence as we loop through a maze of coral, stopping here and there to check out things like a large, well-rusted anchor or other assorted boat parts that’ve made their way down here.  One fish with what could only be described as big, long “lips” (interestingly enough, his official name is “Thicklipped Jack”) is down here in abundance, as are several kinds of Butterfly Fish.  My best encounter is with a Moray Eel, hidden away in the coral, but coming out to stare at me face to face with its large, Muppet-like eyes.

The trip ends at a well-placed grand finale: Slumped over, at a forty-five degree angle, is a single moai, covered in a variety of undersea growth.  It’s only the second one I’ve come across, and the twelve foot monolith is immediate awe-inspiring, as it stares forward at me soullessly.  Despite their being created hundreds of years ago, and likely being underwater for who knows how long, the face is surprisingly sturdy and angular with little show of wear.  Why did they build it?  What does it mean?  And how did it get so far out here?

After a few moments of staring, I get the signal that it’s time to rise and we make our way — slowly — to the surface.

“How was it?” he asks, as we de-gear in the boat.

“The moai was incredible.  Do they know how it got out here??”

“Hunh?  Oh, they just built that and dumped it down there a coupla years ago.”

“Oh…”

The First of Many Celebrations of the Sun

Tourism in Easter Island — at least as far as I can tell from talking to others at the hostel — isn’t about being at a place, so much as being at a combination of “place” and “sun location.”  You’ve seen Anakena?  Big deal.  Have you seen it at sunrise?  Duh, obviously.  That was a trick question — everyone knows Anakena is the place to go for sunset!”

Anakena isn’t particularly impressive at sunset, actually.  The point is that everyone seemed to have a different “the place to be” for both daily significant stages of the sun.  One person assured me Tongariki was his favorite sunset spot, despite the fact that the sun sets on the opposite side of the island, making Tongariki singularly unimpressive for anyone hoping to actually see the sun during sunset.

My first sunset, though, is at Tahai, a cluster of five moai (with another standing alone in the distance) just at the north end of town.  Less than a year ago, I’d never seen the sun rise on the Pacific.  It’s old hat by now, but no less  impressive.  And this does mark my first opportunity to see the sun both rise and set on the Pacific in the same 24 hour span.

It’s the little milestones…

Three of my hostels other denizens had rented a car for the day and we pile in together with our massive DSLR tourist cameras to Tahai.  In addition to the moai there, several other rocks have apparent sacred and archaeological relevance, though most of these would be missed were it not for signs alerting us that we aren’t to touch them.  The sun’s a steadily dimming, lumpy yellow ball over a field of pink wispy clouds, far enough from the ocean’s horizon to muffle the collective excitement of the sunset seekers.

It’s ok.  No one here’s in much of a rush.

I Get Around

Back at the hostel, a particularly fit Englishman’s extolling the virtues of biking (bicycle, that is) across the island.  And the place is small enough that this is viable, but I lack both the desire for exercise and a well-exercised enough body to take on the challenge.  Six hours can do an entire circuit of the island without stopping.  However, I want to stop.  Often.

Traveling alone and with a deep appreciation for the wind beating against me as I get from points A to B, the scooter is then the way to go.

I’m actually denied.  Twice.  My official International Driver’s License is well and good, but says nothing about my ability to handle a motorcycle, and apparently the horsepower required to get these scooters up and down the gravelly hills of Easter Island push them up a vehicle class to full-on motorcycle.  Look long enough, and someone is always willing to overlook little technicalities like that.  Fifteen bucks finally gets me twenty-four hours of the open road, and I intend to use them.

Unlike my scooter experience in Iquitos, helmets are not only given but required here.  I relay the policies of Iquitos to the owner of the rental place, a gringo that appears to be Jewish in general and from New York in particular (”Yeah, Brooklyn.  Originally…,” he says when I inquire) and he nods knowingly.

“Yeah, used to be like that here too.  We just had two deaths — a couple, actually — on one of these back in January, and since then, things have gotten much stricter, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Be careful!”

I step outside, get on my shiny yellow scooter, start the ignition and feel the first drops of rain hit my forearm.

The Scooter

A quick stop at one of the many overpriced mercados gets me salami, crackers and cheese — no apples!  Unexpectedly, the rental place had no disposable maps, leaving me with only the laminated one up on the wall to study while planning my route.  Luckily, as the map above shows, there aren’t too many options on Easter Island with regard to roads.  A paved road cuts through the center of the island, eventually meeting up with the gravel road that runs parallel to it along the southern coast.  A dirt road follows much of the northern coast, but I’m warned it’s barely suitable for anything other than walking.

Despite it’s “dainty” yellow appearance, the scooter’s got some kick to it, and an automatic transmission makes for a somewhat easier drive.  But the wind and rain do little to help me get acquainted with the subtle nuances of offroad (so I lost control on the gravel a few times) scootering.  Peeling around the southwest corner of the island, screaming the lyrics to “Country Road, Take Me Home” in an attempt to turn my attention away from the cold wetness permeating me, second thoughts begin to enter my mind over the awesomeness of circling the island on an open-air vehicle.

As the multitude of brown dots on the map above demonstrate, the entire coastline is covered in ruins and archaeological sites.  Many of these are toppled moais (plans are in the works to get all upright again within the next ten years, but again, progress is slow here on the island).  Other sites look like nothing more than piles of rocks arranged in a nice, photogenic proximity to the edge of the shore, perpetually covered in the mist of breaking waves.  The first few sites garner a brief walkaround from me; eventually I realize it’d be impossible to hit up every point of interest on the island in my allotted time and push on towards some of the more noteworthy stops.

After a time, gravel gives way to marginally paved roads; pot holes bordering on trenches dot the path relentlessly, requiring constant vigilance.  Also after a while, the sun comes out, turning what might’ve potentially been a bad idea into an incredible one.

The Quarry

Moais had to actually be planned, carved and created somewhere with a great deal of granite — the coasts are fairly devoid of the raw material for it.  The prime location was Rano Raraku, one of the three major volcanoes (now collapsed into a crater-like pond) that spewed forth what was to be the body of Easter Island.  From the rocky surface of the ground here, the moai were painstakingly chipped into existence, then somehow carried across the entire island.  It might not seem like a large island from the vantage point of of a speeding motorcycle, but it was surely far more vast when slowly trodden across with several tons of granite in tow.

While impressive, the coastal moai strike me as partially… false.  All were knocked down, their faces left earthward in the mud, for close to two hundred years.  Only recently have they been reestablished in what was likely their initial formation.  The statues found here in the quarry, all in various stages of creation, sit exactly as they have for the past several centuries.  Carved into the rock jutting forth from the earth, they’re arranged haphazardly, at odd angles to the ground around them.  Somehow more strange and mysterious for it, I found these by far the most captivating.

The above shots were all taken along the outside of the Rano Raraku crater, but I’d already been told by many that far more statues were in progress within the volcano itself.  A single path leads inwards, but visitors may only enter with hired guides (for a fee, of course).  The next morning, I would shoot across the island again to witness sunrise at Tongariki, but afterwards it would still be early enough to get in before the quarry was to open.  A prime opportunity to check things out on the cheap…

Tongariki

One-time capital of the eastern settlement of Hotu Iti, the fifteen moai here were no less spared than any of the others during the civil wars of the nineteenth century.  In addition to being toppled, a massive tidal wave in the early twentieth century actually hit with enough impact to carry many of the monoliths deeper inland.  The largest of the fifteen weighs in at 86 tons and is the heaviest moai on the island.

Until the 1990’s, all of these statues remained toppled.  A joint team of Chileans and Japanese painstakingly worked to reestablish the original locations of each moai, and reset them into those positions.

Northward, to Anakena

Poike, the eastern section of the island and easternmost of its major volcanos, is closed off to travelers, and the main road runs northward alongside it.  Ostensibly, my destinations are the twin beaches around Anakena, but a sign points to something called “Papa Vaka” and I take a detour.  ”Papa” apparently means flat, volcanic outcropping, and as the early settlers here had a fancy for carving rock, nearly all the rocks here have had some meaning chiseled into them.  One details a large tuna, surrounded by U-shaped hooks — a popular icon here on the island.  Another shows what appears to be an octopus.  None, however, came out well in pictures…

My first go-around, I miss the road leading to the smaller of the two northern beaches, but Anakena is unmissable.  Besides the abundance of signs and one of the few parking lots on the island, there are giant granite statues looming over an off-white sand beach.  That it’s a gorgeous beach is undeniable.  That it’s one of the only beaches on the island, however, means there are literally buses parked out in the lot and the beach is to capacity, even in this off season.

For an hour or so, I swim about the cove, ever vigilant of the white shirt on the beach hiding the keys to my motorcycle.  I haven’t been told there’s much crime here, but in reality, crimes of opportunity are everywhere and it’s impossible to be too safe.

A few pictures later and I’m back on the road to let the now-warm wind handle drying me off.

Random Caves.  Plus:  Beating a Dead Horse

I’m sure there’s a name for these caves, and a story as well.  I just couldn’t find it on the island or afterwards on the Internet.  Heading back westward from Anakena, through the center of Rapa Nui, the road branches off to the north, and the sun is still high enough in the sky to give me time to investigate.  Not even gravel, the road is dirt, though mostly dry at this point from the morning’s rain.  A sign points off to “Ahu Akivi,” at one point but I ignore it and head further north.

A lump of black sits to the right side of the road up ahead, and eventually it forms into the shape of a sleeping horse.  No.  Not sleeping.  Closer now, I can see it covered in a swarm of flies, it’s eyes open and glazed over.  Poor thing.

There are horses all over this island, so it only makes sense that some of them kick the bucket from time to time.  I start to press on, then stop with a perverse idea taking shape in my mind.  Surreptitiously, I get off the bike, slowly making my way toward the recently deceased animal, my head held back in revulsion.  Quickly, I give it a soft kick on a fly-barren section of its ass before running back to my scooter and taking off.  Not so hard a kick as to disrespect the deceased, but solid enough to live the idiom.

A non-descript, dirt parking lot further in grabs my attention and I park the scooter to investigate.  No moai.  No interesting rocks or signs or reasons for this location to host upwards of twenty vehicles.  I walk over to a patch of brush and nearly fall before seeing the steps downward.  Below, an elaborate system of caves stretch off in multiple directions, each cave filled with stone piles, carvings and other evidence of past significance.

The caves are dark, but high enough for me to walk upright, and perfectly placed holes in the ceiling allow enough light into the darkness to guide my way.  At times, curiosity drives me past points where all natural light has vanished, forcing me to turn to the flash on my camera to take bright, split-second shots with my retinas in order to venture further in.  For something not even on the map, it was definitely a highlight for me.

Sunrise on Rapa Nui

I’m not a morning person, so this better be good.

Worse, I might miss it — whatever IT is — altogether.  Sunrise occurs around 7:20, meaning cautious travelers are advised to be up and mobile by half past six.  I groggily came into consciousness at 6:50, tossed on my hoodie and helmet (unsure of which went on first) and tore out of the gravel driveway with only the dim scooter headlamp guiding my way across the island.  It’s chilly, but surprisingly not as bad as riding through the cool rain yesterday.

It’s already light as I approach the pothole-ridden east end of the island — a good thing.  The few close calls I’ve had on this bike have come about because of these monstrous gashes in the pavement, and the idea of tackling them in darkness had me scared.  Three cars sit in Tongariki’s parking lot; not much, but at this hour it’s enough to reiterate that this is indeed one of the go-to spots  for a Rapa Nui sunrise.  It certainly is the furthest option from the main settlement.

Sunrise comes slowly, in part because the actual sunrise on the water is blocked by the inaccessible Poike volcano to the east.  Apparently the volcano blocks direct sun-over-the-ocean sunrise from nearly everywhere on the island.

“Why be anywhere for sunrise, then?” I asked.

“The colors, man,” I’m told.

Rapa Nui’s Unofficial Nude Beach

Anakena is supposed to house the two actual beaches on the island (not counting the rocky area just outside Hanga Roa), though so far I’d only been able to find the larger of the two.  The other, past a large rocky outcropping to the east, I’d only been told about by other travelers.  Far more secluded, it’d be an ideal spot for a morning swim, if only it weren’t so off-the-map that I couldn’t find it.

Four trips down promising (yet ultimately fruitless) dirt roads, and I have a success of sorts.  It’s definitely the beach I’m looking for and it’s definitely gorgeous and secluded.  It also has a big sign informing me that the beach is currently closed off to the general public.

Sure.  To those other people, maybe…

Only when I stand out on the open beach, taking it all in as a gift for me and me alone do I realize that I have a golden opportunity here.

Orongo and the Cult of the Birdman

By the mid-19th century, moais were no longer the hip, go-to religious icons they once had been (most of them now finding themselves face down in the dirt) and the Birdman cult had taken over as the newer, hipper, less stone-worshipping spiritual craze of Rapa Nui.  Its religious center: Rano Kau, the volcano comprising the western tip of the island.  And more specifically, Orongo, a small patch of land with the wall of Rano Kau’s crater on one side, and a 750 cliff wall dropping down to the sea on the other.

Despite ditching the massive monolithic faces, the people of Rapa Nui weren’t as quick to ditch stone altogether, and the Orongo site is comprised of 53 rounded stone buildings making full use of the limited real estate.  They’re very proud of their UNESCO World Heritage Site status, but that could just be because it gets them five bucks a head for what’s actually a fairly small attraction.  It does allow some great views of Motu Nui, however.

What is Motu Nui, and who is this Birdman character?

Just south of the sheer cliff face of Orongo lie three small islands, the largest of which is Motu Nui.  The tangata-manu (”bird-man”) was an annually appointed title, based upon an extremely dangerous Fear Factor-esque challenge.  Each year, prophets would use their magical clairvoyance to select several contestants to vie for the role of Birdman — it’s assumed from the histories that this was a great honor, though based upon the challenge, I would’ve been fairly irate at the prophets for having been chosen.

The birdman’s goal is to swim out to the farthest island (Motu Nui), collect the first Sooty Tern egg of the season (who knows what kept the terns there year after year, if collecting their eggs were such a sport?), swim back through the shark-infested waters to the 750 foot cliff face and climb — with the egg — to the top, to deliver it at Orongo.  If it sounds less than easy, it’s because it wasn’t.  Most participants died each year to drowning, falling or shark attack.

There is a bright side, of course.  The winner basically achieved celebrity status for the remainder of the year.  Women loved him, men wanted to be him, etc, etc.  Not only was he given the austere title of Tangata-Manu (again, “Bird-Man”), but his clan now had sole rights to collect that season’s entire harvest of wild bird eggs and fledglings from Motu Nui.  That’s right — the island you have to swim through jagged rocks and sharks to get to.  In all fairness, they probably used boats for subsequent voyages.

Birdmen also likely got laid more than Texas high school quarterbacks during football season, though none of my sources state this precisely.

All in all, it was a fun little yearly tradition that only lasted through the mid-1800’s, when Christian missionaries and Peruvian slave raiders came in, bringing diseases and exporting the locals such that 95 percent of the population of Rapa Nui would be wiped out less than ten years later.

Way to end a blog entry on an up note…