Tuesday, 30 September 2014
At 10 am, my taxi arrived. Except that it was not a taxi, it was a tuk tuk, and the owner was very proud to tell me that it was the only one in Easter Island, and in Chile! I guess I am fortunate, and it was nice to take a ride in the tuk tuk while breathing the clean air of the island and with the wind on my face. But it was a bit chilly today, very little sun and it rained last night too.
First I went to the museum, the Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum. I found it a very interesting museum, which explained in chronological order the history and culture of the island. Maybe I should have started with the museum before going for the tours. Oh well, better late than never. Apart from learning the history and culture of the island which I already knew from the tours, I also saw a female moai, said to be that of the sister of Hotu Matu'a, basalt and obsidian tools, weapons and fishing tools, and a moai with reconstructed fragments of one of the eye made of coral and obsidian for the iris. Apparently this is the only moai ever found with bits of the eye still capable of reconstruction, every other moai's eyes were destroyed in the social revolution in the 1600s.
Then the challenge of climbing Terevaka, the biggest and highest extinct volcano on the island. It is also the youngest of the 3 extinct volcanoes on the island, about 300,000 years old. It is about 511 m above sea level, and the climb up is about 4.5 km. The tuk tuk driver stopped me at Ahu Akivi, the site I visited yesterday. It was actually not that steep of a climb, and I managed to reach the crater in about 1 1/2 hours. But from the crater I saw another hill nearby which looked higher, so I climbed that as well, and you could see the entire island from here. There was another hill behind that and I climbed that as well. Here I had to go to the loo but of course there was no loo in sight. So I went in the open, I really had no choice. I figured that with the many cows and horses doing their business in the open, Mother Nature can surely take one more. I hope the god of extinct volcanoes forgives my indiscretion. Later, I would confess my sin to the tuk tuk driver and to the guy at the hotel, and both of them told me it is a very normal thing to do because there are no toilets in that area. I felt better after hearing this.
After the climb up and down Terevaka, I walked past Ahu Akivi to a nearby cave known as the Ana Te Pahu. As I climbed down some rocky stairs into the cave area, I saw a lot of banana trees in the opening of the cave. There were 2 cave entrances, and I went half way into both, but then it began getting darker and darker until I could not see anything, and I didn't bring a torch light with me so I decided to turn back when I ran out of sunlight. I do not know whether there was another exit at the other side of the cave or whether it was a dead end. And besides, being alone in a dark cave with banana trees surrounding the area kind of creeped me out for some reason, and I was happy to get out of there.
The walk to and from the cave to Ahu Akivi I think is about 3 kms, so altogether I walked about 12 km today! My legs were feeling a bit tired. Then I returned to the hotel, took a shower and heated up the food that I packed from the restaurant yesterday, and had an early dinner. Then I sat down to update my blog, and I read that there was a traditional dance performance known as Kari Kari which was performed every Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and today was Tuesday, and I was just in time for the 9 pm show! So I took a cab to town and watched the performance, the way the women danced reminded me of Hawaiian dances that I watched on tv, while the way the men danced reminded me a little of the Maori war dance, there was a lot of shouting going on. It was very enjoyable, you can see that the Rapa Nui people are very proud of their heritage, and that's they way it should be!
Then I took a cab back to the hotel and went to bed, with slightly sore legs. What can I say, I love to walk alone, sore legs or otherwise.
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