Moais & beach life

So next day Easter island. We woke up in time for breakfast which varied a bit from day to day, eggs every second day which was our favorite. Then we headed out to the beach of Anakena. Supposed to be the best beach on the island and it seemed to be true. A beautiful beach with moais when you entered. Not your everyday beach. We spent the morning relaxing in the sand, me swimming in the refreshing chill water. J kept a safe distance to the water despite my efforts. Well at least I can say that I swum when on this mystical island.

Our hostal garden

More from the garden

At the entrance to Anakena they also had a wooden carved figure of a woman giving birth resting in a hand. Loved it, very beautiful. You'll see some different angles of it here.

Loved this one so you'll see it from many angels to really appreciate it

Moais facing away from the beach (always facing to the island core)

View from the beach

Beach.

View of beach from pricy lunch place

After a relaxing start it was time to continue our discovery of the island and it's history. Our top pick this day was the cradle of the moais, Rano Raraku. Rapa nui made most of the Moais in this place, cutting them out from the stone and then transporting them to various destination at the island. The biggest moai at the island weighs around 80 tons and measures almost 10 m height. How they moved these massive statues is still a mystery although many theories exists. They say the moais walked so one of the recent theories might be close to the truth where they tie ropes to the moais and pull it from two directions in a synchronised way. Search for it on YouTube, it's very cool.

In this place you'll also find many none finished moais, remember the rapa nui abandoned this belief later on for the birdman cult. And that there were many wars between clans on the island. And also europeans destroying some of the history when arriving at the island. Walking around in this area was really something else, spectacular. Another thing worth mentioning is that the moais have bodies, they're not only heads. Only these are buried under ground due to the course of time under the force of nature.

Apart from this we also visited other areas like one with petroglyphs. Very hard to see today but they had wooden signs next to them which facilitated the image. Here you could see boats, turtles and many other things carved into the stone.

Supposed to be a canoe

Mango, not the fruit but a shark

Fish hooks and other symbols

Another top pick this day was Tongariki. Majestetic. I'll leave you to the pictures of some of the things mentioned above here:

Impressive collection of Moais in the background at Ahu Tongariki

The cradle. Rano Raraku

Rano Raraku

Moais carved from the mountain

Can you see the beginning of the moai?

View from Rano Raraku

Seeing Tongariki from Rano Raraku

So we'll keep it short with history today. We read everything we could from information signs at the different spots on the island but some places would be nicer to visit with a guide. Like old villages and remains of houses, ovens and such. The information here was a bit scarce.

When returning to Hanga Roa at the evening we had our reservation at the sunset restaurant Te Moai Sunset that was totally booked at Christmas. Also this night of the 26th was fully booked so good thing we were the first names on the list. We had some rain even this late hour this day but the sunset was not disappointing. And the food! One of our favourites during the trip (does not beat Puerto Varas but still lovely). So we kind of did our Christmas today instead of the 24th :-)

Merry Christmas,