Over my head on Easter Island

Day one: Ahu Tahai and sunset over the moai


Restlessness had set in after four hours of seeing nothing but the endless Pacific Ocean since taking off from Santiago. Finally, a faint trace of Easter Island — Rapa Nui to the Polynesians and Isla de Pascua to the Spanish-speaking — materialized and relief engulfed me. As my aircraft approached, the island’s equilateral triangle shape became more evident. At the southwest corner lay Hanga Roa, the only settlement in the generally uninhabited island. My plane touched down literally a kilometer from town.

Easter Island, of course, is home to enigmatic stone statues (moai), and seeing the giant heads was my main intent.

After a hasty lunch of grilled fish and an unsuccessful attempt at a nap, I began my island discovery on foot towards Ahu Tahai, the nearest moai site to town. My first moai had shell and coral eyes staring straight ahead in a permanent gaze. Moai are not just heads but full torsos in squatting position, their hands at rest on their bellies and exhibited on inclined ahu or stone platforms. They come in varying sizes (from five to 21 meters high) and can weigh anywhere from 20 to 30 tonnes. Over 900 odd statues are spread throughout the island. These are not sculptures of note and have low artistic value. But the unanswered questions are numerous. How were these monoliths transported over long distances or raised in elevated stands? Some of the mystique may have dissipated with archaeological advancements shedding some light, but the air of mystery still prevails.

I hiked northward on an unpaved and bare track along the rugged western coastline towards Dos Ventanas — a set of caves under battered cliffs. Twice, other visitors in 4WDs slowed down and offered me a lift. I declined the invitations and exchanged polite conversation before my generous new acquaintances drove on and left me in clouds of dust. I preferred to walk and I didn’t want any company.

Easter Island is over 3,500 kms from both mainland Chile (which annexed the territory) and Tahiti. Pointing out this mere fleck in a wide expanse of blue on a map is rather tricky. After a good hour or so on the solitary stretch of dirt road, it dawned on me that I could not be more isolated. I was as far away from everything and everyone as I possibly could. I had officially “gotten away from it all.”

To my left, the azure sea sparkled under a light blue ceiling that stretched out to the horizon, with only patches concealed by white cotton candy clouds. Opposite lay extensive open spaces and rolling coats of green and brown. Herds of cows and horses nibbled and chewed in absolute abandon on both sides, reminding me of Batanes — weather-beaten, remote and isolated.

The Dos Ventanas scenery was unlike anything in Tahiti, Fiji and the neighboring Polynesian islands. It was certainly not tropical but more akin to Dover in England with its battered and craggy cliffs. I hovered at the verge of an overhang with my eyes closed and felt the breeze on my face. My ears picked up the surf’s constant un-metered pounding. The booming modulated like an aircraft in the distant sky. Eventually, I headed back to Ahu Tahai in time for sunset to see the moai bathed in the day’s end colors.

A small crowd had already gathered in Ahu Tahai when I arrived to watch the monolithic sentinels being swallowed by darkness. The moai were already striking enough, but they were a formidable sight when set against a backdrop of diffusing light. The stoic countenance became much more pronounced, like Socrates contemplating over his full cup of hemlock. The throng thinned out gradually and once the last faint streak of scarlet dissolved into black, the place was empty. I doubled my walking pace to catch up with the last group of holdouts. There was no way I would be left behind. I was a little terrified.

Day two: The great Easter Island egg hunt


The rim of Ranu Kao is only 335 meters above sea level, not exactly a serious challenge to out-and-out hikers. The easy approach to the top, however, did not in any way diminish the quality of the view. The scene was astonishingly dramatic — a wide crater convexed into a giant pool, the sky’s color reflected in its opaque surface, interspersed with wild green reeds. Rocks and grass laced the inner slopes of the caldera. The reward-to-effort ratio was off the charts.

The stunning views of the crater were not the sole reason for the trip up this headland. Remnants of over 50 stone houses are scattered at the crater’s top, making up the sacred village of Orongo, home of the Birdman cult. Every year in September, young men from the different tribes would race to collect the first egg of the sacred frigate birds that nested on the islets off Orongo. They would swim across on makeshift rafts fashioned from reed, collect an egg, swim back and then clamber the high cliffs back to the stone houses to present this to their waiting chiefs. The chief of the competition’s winner was then considered sacred and he became the representative of Make-make, the god of fertility. For one year, he would live in one of the stone houses, ruling the island until the next birdman competition. For the rest of his life, he would retain his magical powers and when he died, he would take his place among the other distinguished ancestors as a stone figure, watching over his people.

At last, I began to grasp the significance of the statues. They were an integral component of the practice of ancestral worship.

During lunch at the seaside restaurant Haka Honu, speakers blared out an assortment of tunes from Nouvelle Vague to Bob Marley to Antonio Carlos Jobim. The kitchen staff gyrated to the rhythms while they prepared my seafood plate of tuna carpaccio, breaded crab claws and shrimp in aioli sauce. The restaurant owner, a native of Seville (and another foreigner to succumb to the allure of the island), suggested I try Escudo, the local Chilean brew. I easily consumed three bottles before my meal was served, losing count of dread-locked locals whizzing by in scooters. The island vibe was profoundly entrenched and in full display here. One of the cooks exchanged her top hat and spatula for a dive mask, snorkel, fins and a spear and headed for the bay in front of the restaurant to fish for Paoa (blue fish).

Afterwards, I pedaled around the island in search of more moai. The seven Moai of Ahu Akivi, the only statues facing the ocean, represent the first discoverers of Rapa Nui who arrived from Polynesia. The lone moai at Ahu Huma Urenga, situated right between the eastern and western coasts, was purposely constructed to identify seasons for planting and harvesting. It can pinpoint solstice and equinox in the same way the monoliths of Stonehenge and the hitching post of Machu Picchu operate. I was amazed how different civilizations separated by time and distance independently possessed the same understanding of celestial behavior.

Later that evening, in a nondescript local theater, I caught a performance of Matato’a — a dance and musical fusion of traditional and modern styles, perfectly choreographed and executed by artists decked in time-honored Rapa Nui garb. Danced and sung in its entirety, it was an energetic portrayal of Rapa Nui history and culture. The venue was spartan, but there was nothing frugal nor simple about the show. Another day well spent.

Day three: Starvation and a violent ending

The 15 Tongariki moai, standing erect in rigid military attention, are the largest statues on the island. A tsunami washed these 30-ton statues over 300 meters away from the original podium and a generous grant from the Japanese government facilitated the restoration to its old grandeur.

A kilometer from Tongariki was Rano Raraku, arguably the most important location on Easter Island. I boarded my jeep and sped off straight to it.

Five hundred heads line the side of Ranu Raraku crater as though pushed out from the ground like flowers, nurtured and grown by a gardener with a limestone thumb. This was the assembly line. The statues were carved out from the soft stone of this quarry and slid into prepared slots on the hillside. Images of heads sticking out from the earth in diverse positions erect or otherwise had captivated me as a child, and I devoured every information and literature I could get. The mantra had always been Easter Island before I die.

A well laid-out trail permitted me to visit most of the heads in an organized sequence, and I was searching for one in particular, long etched in my mind. Eventually, I found it in the throng, its torso fully bent forward, bowed perhaps by the burdens of a dark history. I have seen this image a million times in various books and magazines. Finally, we came face to face. This was the raison d’etre of this trip.

I made my introductions while he maintained his stony silence. I was elated by this meeting that had been a long time coming.

Everywhere, a multitude of heads dotted the landscape. From Rano Raraku’s slopes, I imagined the 18-km coast littered with moai platforms, as it once was in its full glory, with at least one ahu for every kilometer. It must have been a powerful and overwhelming sight.

Although it is still not clear how these statues were transported all over the island, it has been established that wood was used (as levers, tracks and sleds). To continually meet the demand for wood to satisfy the increasing preoccupation for statue building, trees were felled at a rapid pace, much faster than the rate of recuperation and reforestation.

There are no more trees. The minor foliage and forests are recent additions from relatively recent reforestation efforts. Once the trees were used up, the islanders most likely faced starvation as they would not have been able to create sea-going vessels to fish. Nor would they have been able to leave the island. Food crops could not be raised without irrigation. Watersheds would not have formed without trees. A horrifying portrait of desperation emerges.

The torso, over 20 meters longs, lay face down on the rocky ground, its nose groveling in the dirt like a fallen martyr waylaid from behind. All around the coast were moai, forcibly brought down, showcasing man at his worst once self-control was cast aside and the power of hate and desperation reigned.

When faced with starvation as resources grew scarce, hostilities between the Rapa Nui tribes erupted. Warring clans began toppling the moai which were viewed as the source of the people’s power. After the last moai fell, I could only imagine how the islanders turned on each other and unleashed a deadly carnage.

This is not merely an account of resources gone scarce or evidence of man’s incompetence as stewards of the earth. It is reality at its most horrible when the sense of humanity is lost.

The lifeless corpses may have long decomposed but the legacy of death and destruction was still in plain sight

Intensely unsettled, I decided to forego visiting the remaining sites and proceeded at once to Anakena, the northern-most point of the island with the only beach safe for swimming. I spent the rest of the day basking under the sun and riding the waves. Somehow, I still could not erase the revolting feeling in my gut. We never learn, do we?

I drove back to town and took a borrowed kayak out to sea. Across the bay, I paddled back and forth, both spray and seawind kept my senses occupied. I made out Ahu Tahai from
a distance and decided to make one final stop there. I was unnerved and in dire need of some form of consolation.

I had come full circle in Ahu Tahai, the first site I had visited. Now, I saw the statues in a different light. These mute and somber monoliths now eloquently depicted man’s madness with their silence. The message was clear — the human condition is one that is beset with weakness and folly. Flawed as man is, he will blaze a trail of self-destruction when left to his own devices. Once caught in a spiral, he will be incapable of extricating himself from his predicament and powerless to alter his destiny. It will take the intervention of an external force to change the outcome.

I did not need to look any further for confirmation. My own particularly tangled situation was validation enough. The message of Easter Island hit home. I shook my head, partly in remorse, but mostly in resignation to my muddled predicament. How do I unscramble my own mess?

A major tenet of Christian doctrine then hit me: redemption was never ever an act of man but an act of God. Wasn’t that the foundation of the whole Easter celebration?

I looked out to sea. Dutch seamen arrived in longboats near this spot almost 300 years ago. Perhaps, it is no coincidence that it was Easter Sunday when this island was first discovered by the Western world. Maybe this was part of a grand design — that landfall was preordained to happen at that precise moment to complete the Easter Island saga. I took comfort in that.

Evening crept in and the once thick crowd dispersed. Save for the silent sentinels, I was alone in the darkness.

Or maybe not.