Rapa Nui - stray dogs and carved stone

Akapu sunset

Write a list of small, weird, distant islands, and chances are that Easter Island will rank pretty high. Partly due to the world famous mysterious giant stone statues (Moai) and partly because this little island is so remote that for a very long time no one knew it existed at all.

Named after Easter Sunday, the day Dutch explorer Roggeveen stumbled upon it in 1722, this isolated speck of land has seen more than it's fair share of warfare, starvation and disease.

This is as remote as remote gets. Skegness has more annual visitors. There are hardly any houses, restaurants, shops, people, bikes, door knobs, volleyballs, cans of tuna or pretty much anything else. Once upon a time it was self sufficient, but these days heavily it's heavily reliant on the weekly supply ship. This island belongs to nature, a barren land of stone and waves.


Slopes of the quarry

After a one minute taxi ride from the airport, we checked into the homely casa of the nicest and gayest man in the village, Oscar. After dumping our bags and necking a glass of Oscar's welcoming fresh mango juice, we headed out to find out what this place was all about.

Dogs, apparently. And lots of them too. Big, scary, battle-scarred, rabies-looking mongrels, with sinister yellow fangs protruding and excited strings of saliva sending stretchy missiles of yuck of in every direction.

Soon we were surrounded by a growling, snarling, barking pack of nasty mutts, their piercing, hungry eyes growing bigger by the second. Then we remembered that good old adage "not to show fear", so to try to put them off and make them run away we tried staring right back, looking as hungry as we possibly could (even though we'd just had the Chicken Parmesan on the plane).

To our surprise it worked. A subtle yet significant lowering of the head showed us that they'd succumbed to our pressure. Then, to our absolute horror, they started shaking their tails. Uh oh. For some reason they were now our best buddies. Wherever we went, our unshakable pack of skanky street dogs followed, rubbing their dirty little butts against us at every opportunity, to show us their unwavering loyalty. Shit. Reverse psychology gone horribly wrong.



Windy

To escape our four-legged friends, and to explore the place properly, we rented a rattling 4x4 and drove off to the opposite end of the island. Together with Ad and Anja, two mild-mannered Dutch U2 groupies, we visited lots of sites and saw hundreds of huge Moai, most of them lying face down, having at some point been pushed over by unhappy locals or rumbled by tsunamis.

Among the most impressive sites was Tongariki, a site where 15 of the giant beasts had been lifted up with the help of "the Moai Restoration Committee of Japan" (who, incidentally, in return received fishing rights). We also saw Rana Raraku and Rana Kao, two massive craters, complete with reed growing volcanic lakes and scores of prowling hawks. One of these craters was the main quarry for the Moai, with hundreds of partially buried ones eerily scattered around the hills.


Moai takeoff

Even though the Moai don't exactly show much diversity in execution (it's the same face again and again), they are still awesome. Weighing many tonnes and measuring up to 20 meters these enormous torsos are still puzzling historians and scientists. And the fact that they are scattered over a beautiful, windswept 117 square kilometers of screensaver worthy landscapes, only makes them even better. Think wild horses and grassy fields and big clouds and rain and sun and overwhelming freshness.

With many theories as to how and why these statues were transported and erected, the mysteries of Easter Island will probably never be fully understood. Still, it's been great to visit. A rare and worthwhile lesson to marvel at what creativity and hard work can achieve, even if you only have access to a little bit of nature.


Tongariki

Then, as quickly as we came, we left. Taking the very impressive Chilean LAN airline to Santiago, where we are now eating fast food and deliberating our exact next steps.

We'll see what happens. We are in no rush. Meanwhile we may just order another round of hot dogs. With avocado. And mayonnaise. Lots of it. Because, hey, we're on holiday.

Hasta Luego.


Flashlight drawing