We had a kitty visitor last night at our place. I know, I know, but he was super cute and friendly. A medium-haired black cat and he was very playful and affectionate and wore a little red collar with a bell. We first saw him chasing bugs, then when he saw us he ran over to do figure 8's around our legs. I sat down and he jumped right up on my lap. Oh I know, but he was cute! I gave him some of my leftover wahu and he was quite happy.
After waiting for 40 minutes, we gave up on the shuttle picking us up to take us to the dance show, Te Ra'ai. Ten minutes later, it arrived on 'island time' apparently, similar to Hawaii. It was a five minute ride to the place we were going to. We were ushered into a large room where maybe 30 other people were finishing their dinner. We had been told that we wouldn't be back in time for the dinner, but apparently that wasn't the case. All good as we got great pisco sours and dinner last night.
They served a drink of papaya juice and some liquor that wasn't very good and we paid for the show. One of the dancers came around to paint our faces with a light tan-colored paint, then we were ushered into the 'theater.' It seated maybe 50 and we were now around 40, so the room was mostly filled. There was a band at the back of the stage of 6 and the main presenter who introduced the dance as a one-hour telling of the history of the island. Of course, one hour isn't a lot of time, but they would describe through words, song and dance the highlights.
The women all wore bikinis essentially, of shells and feathers and the men were similarly attired. Kim pointed out that the 'master of ceremony' apparently had a slight wardrobe malfunction. Ahem.
It was beautifully done. the Master spoke in Spanish and English. The dancing was stunning.. some chanting and war dancing, beautifully choreographed and executed mostly, except the one guy who kept goofing up and they would all look at him and giggle. It just added to the show. The women did a lot of belly dancing and one really was quite amazing. They all also had the paint on their faces and bodies. The shuttle took us back and we were glad to have taken in as it was very dark with no lights on the road and we were quite tired from the day. It was around 11 pm or so.
Hello sheep. Hello roosters!
They woke up a touch earlier than I would have liked, but again, didn't bother me too much. And I still giggle over the sheep sounding like a cranky old man. I made a cup of tea and enjoyed the quiet. Well, quiet with sheep and roosters.
We got picked up promptly at 9:30, though we weren’t ready as we were told yesterday to expect to be picked up at ten. Whoops. Rosita was our guide.
First we went to the Rano Kau volcano, the largest on the island. The crater is 1.5 km in diameter. This volcano was the second to erupt on the island, around 2.5 million years ago. The last eruption was around 180k years ago. It’s 300 meters above sea level and the lake in the caldera is around 200m down. It’s made of fresh water from rain and has a lot of growing reeds.
https://www.google.cl/search?q=orongo&es_sm=119&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDYQsARqFQoTCIS-muTP8scCFcyRkAodraMETg&biw=1132&bih=599
Avocado, figs, grapes were all introduced and grow in the caldera as there is a microclimate with the right temperature and humidity. There is a beautiful view of Hanga Roa, the town.
We could also see the airport. LAN is the only airline to fly to the island and it was created as an emergency plan for the space shuttle.
The island is very small, and 24 km x 16 km.
We can see a cargo ship in the harbor from Valparaiso. It takes 8-10 days to get here, and cruse ships from Valpo take around 6 days. We see a new hospital on the island as well. There is only general medicine provided.
The ground is glittering with obsidian, shiny black think volcanic glass. It was often used to make the moai pupils and arrowheads.
Orongo is a ceremonial village near the top of the volcano and was used only for ceremony, not for living in. It was built in around the 15th and 16th century. Rano Kau is considered sacred. We went through a very modern ranger’s station over a trail to see three small islands by the side of the volcano. Moto Nui is the big island, Moto Hi the small, and Moto Kau kau the tall and pointy one.
Orono was built as a center for religious and political ceremony. This was where the Birdman settlement was and chiefs, priests and warriors, the ‘important people’ comed to live for a few weeks every September. Their small homes were reconstructed at the top, with a small low entry door on one side. The houses were reconstructed by an American archaeologist William Malloy between 1974 and 1976. Half of one was left open so people can view the construction.
There are a lot of clouds coming in and the wind picked up making it very cold at this high place. The top of the hill is all very bright green, and there are stones littering the area of the homes that were once there and weren’t reconstructed.
The Birdman clan arrived in September from the villages throughout the island. The chiefs chose their best warriors for the competition. They climbed down the Kari Kari depression into Ranu Kau, cut some of the reeds, constructed a float and swam to the big island (Moto Nui) to await the migratory birds, the sooty tern. The first to find an egg called to the Chief. Orongo, means to hear. The chief heard the call letting him know his warrior found an egg. The chief then prepared for the ceremony by shaving his head for purity.
The warrier put the egg in a basket tied on his head to swim back. He climbed the cliffs to return to the tip. Petroglyphs are here telling the story. The warrior then presents the egg to the priest, and the priest presents it to the Chief at sunset. The winning chief became the birdman.
After the ceremony, the Birdman was taken in a caravan with singing and dancing back to their holy place. If the tribe was on the east of the island, they stayed nearby. And if the tribe was on the west of the island, they went to Anakena Beach. The priest and chief were in seclusion for one year and the priest cared for the Birdman, who was considered a sacred person.
This religious ceremony was in honor of Maki, the most important God. It was political as well as the winning tribe controlled the island for one year.
The Birdman tribes rules from the end of the Moai period around the 17th century to 1864 when the French Catholic missionary arrived and converted the island to Christianity.
1 Moai was found in one of the houses buried halfway. It had petroglyphs on the back and stands 2 meters high. There was a platform/Ahu where it used to sit before it was moved inside, likely due to the wars. It was given by the island chiefs as a gift to an English expedition and was taken to be housed in a museum in England.
There is a path down the side of the caldera that is a source of water for the village. There is only enough water in the village for drinking and bathing, so women used to ride horses to the caldera to do their wash. Rosita said her mother did it when she was young, so it was as recent as 50 years. Young men stull go down to get fern roots that grow there, and take it to the ladies who make meds of it. The roots are said to treat cancer and diabetes (Matua pua.) Maybe that’s why they only have general medicine here..
The houses were made of thin strips of stone laid over each other. The rocks were cut in slab by a hard basalt stone.
We next went to the Vinapu area with two sites, both in ruins. Each site had a village nearby and foundations of ancient ruined houses and cooking pits. The moai represented chiefs as people worshipped the ancestors.
The second ahu had a wall towards the water at the back of the ahu, built similarly to the Inca style where large rocks were carefully fitted together without mortar. An anthropologist used this to support his belief that the people on the island came from South America. He tried to support his theory building a boat of a wood platform with reeds and rope. It took him 101 days to arrive on some islands, but he couldn’t get to Easter Island due to the currents. The boat was mostly destroyed except for the wood platform (contiki boat). Most likely the two waves of migration to the island were Polynesian. They used the stars, currents, migratory birds, fish, and even the color of clouds to navigate. They went against the wind so they could go back with the wind if they ran into trouble. It’s now believed that they may have made it to Peru and came back and built the wall. The walls are similar to those in Peru though much more symmetrical and not as thick.
This ahu was one of the last built on the island. It was one of the largest built but in ruins now. The first we saw was built around 1280.
On the south side of the island viewable from these ahu, we could see red cliffs and the stone made to use the ‘top knot’ hair for the Moai. It’s raining there and a light mist moved in.
We saw a statue entirely of red of a woman at the front of the second ahu. You could see a faint outline of eyes. When the eyes were done, the spirit of the ancestors inhabit the moai and they have mama, or spirit.
We were dropped off in town and had lunch at Kuki Varui with the couple from Arizona. I got kana kana, a local white fish, also similar to swordfish and a mango sour, which wasn’t very good. The lunch was great though, and we all enjoyed it.
We walked up the street to see the church then walked back down the main road. A poor female dog was surrounded by males, and as we got closer, we saw the poor thing was stuck to one. Hopefully she can extract herself.
We walked back past the ice cream place the Arizonans raved about and it was closed. So we decided to stop at the market, also closed. It doesn’t bode well for tomorrow, Sunday. On the way we saw a cute puppy sitting in a doorway. She followed us for a while and we thought she would leave, but she came all the way home. I gave her my leftovers from the first meal here and Kim’s too and she scarfed it. She’s really skinny.
After seeing the poor female dog in the town, kim walked her back to her house. She had to fight off several dogs bothering her and she was very happy to run into the restaurant doorway where we saw her. After seeing the poor female dog today Kim didn’t want to leave her to walk back herself and it sounds like it was a good thing she didn’t.
I had told Camilla that it’s Kim’s birthday today and asked her to call the restaurant we’re going to tonight to see if they will do a cake. She left a note in the place that they don’t but they will sing happy birthday and we can bring a cake. She left two beautiful flowers on the table and a small package with three beautiful cards of moai and horses for Kim, which was so thoughtful.
This restaurant has beautiful sunsets, but with it drizzling and overcast, I don’t think we will be lucky. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow so unfortunately, tonight is our best chance. The LAN office closed mid-day today so we couldn’t get there in time. Camilla said she called and thinks we are ok to leave on the 14th. Thankfully!
I took a short nap now that our farm friends are quieter. I didn't sleep really as I am so cold, and decided to give in and have one of the nescafe's that was here. I think the coffee maker is for show as I didn't see one thing of regular coffee or filters.
We walked back to the center of town past the church to get to our restaurant for tonight. It is one Camilla recommended with the best sunset view. Unfortunately the weather isn’t cooperating but I thought that would be nice for Kim’s birthday dinner. The place was wonderful! We started off with some great drinks and ordered the fish of the day (which was a choice of two.) One is a whole fish—I don’t do whole fish as they stare back at me accusingly and it skeeves me out. So I got the other one, which again was kind of like swordfish though a little flakier.
Both dishes were amazing. Mine was with a mustard sauce and on a pile of stir-fried veggies and I was in heaven. I eat a lot of veggies at home and haven’t been able to get much here. Kim’s was in a coconut milk sauce and on top of ‘mashed potatoes’ which were crunchy fried cakes. I got a drink of the day which was blue and fun, and we got dessert of caramel crepes (which was more like caramel pudding and not as good as Sur Patagonica) and a cake with meringue frosting. The cake was the better of the two though we thought it would be like tres leches cake and was a bit different. Yum. Very good meal and felt like a better value than the last place we went to, which was a bit pricy.
We walked back to help walk off some of our dinner, fat and happy, and went to bed.
I had a night like Kim did last night.. woken at 3 by a bunch of dogs barking, then the roosters schemed to keep me awake and I never got back to sleep. Last night Kim was kept up by the guys working at the house behind us, who stopped at 9 but then apparently partied until 2. Oh well!
Today will be a mellow day. It was supposed to rain most of the day so we figured we may hunker in a bit and venture out at drier times. It looks like blue skies so we’ll see. We’re both really tired from the last few days with little break. Apparently we walked around 8 miles the day of the full-day tour so we are definitely getting our exercise in.
Good morning sheep. I won’t greet the roosters as I am annoyed with them at the moment, especially not having coffee.
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