We all slept in and almost missed our 9am tour. Even Jennifer slept in- we were all surprised when we woke up and it was 8:30 and time for breakfast.
Our tour today is Historic Pathways and we saw the same crater as yesterday but from another angle/side. Our first visit was to the Orongo ceremonial village (a site of Rapi Nui National Park) and we learned a bit about the BirdMan era. The park had many rock buildings and it was amazing how they could construct a building out of rocks that didn’t fall down.
There had been a civil war on Rapi Nui where the clans/families were fighting each other and in an effort to stop the civil war, they created the BirdMan competition where the winning representative of a clan was chosen as the island leader. The competition included climbing down the cliff face, swimming across the channel to an offshore island, collecting an egg from the Sooty Tern(manutara) colony and returning to the start. One interesting thing was that the competitors could be on the island waiting for days for the Sooty Terns to lay eggs so they could collect one. They had to cooperate in order to get shelter and food while they were waiting.
Of course we went to Rapi Nui (Easter Island) to see the ‘big heads’. These are called Moai. Moai are giant monolithic human figures carved from volcanic rocks. They serve as representatives from ‘important’ people of the clan/family. They are supposed to protect the clan/family and bring prosperity. Once the civil war came, the Moai were pushed over by the enemy clan or by the clan they failed to protect. We saw fallen Moai. They are all over the island.
We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the bay where turtles are often seen and watched people play in the water while the turtles swam around. Tibor was extra happy the resturant served empanadas as that was something he really wanted to try while in Rapi Nui.
After lunch we went to Ahu Akivi and saw seven standing Moai which were restored/moved so they were standing in their original position.
We were out most of the day and returned about 4pm. Jennifer and I took advantage of the pool at the hotel while Tibor napped.
In the evening we went out for dinner at the Te Moai Sunset restaurant because we wanted to see the sunset. It was further from the hotel than we expected but we did enjoy more Moai along the way. We didn’t have reservations so they sat us at the one remaining table- it was very hot and sunny there but we stayed anyway.
The menus are not in English so we don’t always know exactly what we are ordering. Today Jennifer ordered a dish she thought included grilled/seared fish but it was raw tuna and she can’t eat raw fish right now. Tibor was willing to trade his fish soup for her meal as long as she left the broth for him. He really liked the fish soup he had yesterday. He liked today’s as well but it didn’t taste the same.
We were almost finished with dinner when at 9:15pm the sunset was shining behind to Moai so Tibor rushed out for photos, then I rushed out for a couple of photos and came back so Jennifer could rush out for photos. While Jennifer stepped to a window at the resturant to take a photo of the sunset, the waitress removed the bowl of Tibor’s fish soup broth! Oh Oh. The waitress fixed the problem by ordering another complete bowl of fish soup for Tibor. We did have a fun meal and all enjoyed the sunset.
It was just light enough to see when we walked back.
Other photos from the day:
