Easter Island Day 2

The sounds of the night were quite different to what I am used to in Santiago. It was very peaceful, which makes a pleasant change from the traffic and car alarms we have had to get used to, but there were cocks crowing at a most unusual hour in the morning. The sound of birdsong, that I know as the Dawn Chorus, was a beautiful mix of singing from what sounded like thousands of birds, which sadly we never actually saw. Ross woke up early to get in a dive before breakfast, but was so early that he had to sleep at the waters edge for half an hour for it to get even half light enough to dive! Unusually the sunrise was quite late so he only got in the water just before 7am, and even then he said he could only just about see. He enjoyed his dive very much. The visibility can reach 40-60m, but a lack of coral means that fish species are limited in variety. There was however still much sealife of interest.

Surgeon fish and a lone angelfish

Breakfast was served at a communal table, so we enjoyed a typical Chilean style breakfast with Hema of bread, cheese, jam, avocado (mashed with copious amounts of garlic and salt), tea and coffee. I had of course taken other things to eat but did succumb to the pan amasado (hand made bread rolls).  We also had more of the freshly made papaya juice. After breakfast we took a taxi to visit Orongo, one of the volcanoes on the island. It was possible to walk there from our hostel, but we decided not to push my luck physically. It would be much better for us to walk back down. The road took you all the way to the top of the volcano to the entrance to the national park, managed by Conaf, the Chilean conservation organisation. The volcano is now a Manavai or natural greenhouse which provides a sheltered environment from wind and sea salinity for the growth of native and endemic species. Here they can grow in the wild without threat from humans or livestock, thus conserving Rapa Nui's native flora. It is a freshwater lagoon with a depth of approximately 12m with unusual fern species rare on any other part of the island. Species used in traditional medicine are also found in the crater. 

Crater Lagoon, Orongo

    

From the crater we moved on to enter the national park. We had some reservations about what we were going to find there. I decided that we should go in regardless, there wasn't much point in being there and then not going to look. The lady who sold us the tickets was incredibly friendly and helpful and we were relieved to be in possession of Chilean RUT cards which reduced the hefty entrance fee from 30.000CLP per person to 10.000CLP. It turned out to be worth our efforts. It was a fascinating ceremonial village, comprised of 54 houses related to the Tangata-Manu or Bird-Man competition. It was used for only a few weeks of the year in spring, for an annual ceremony. Tribal chiefs would compete to be the first to swim to the nearby island and collect an egg of the Manutara (Sooty Tern) which arrived in spring to nest on the island. Groups would gather in Orongo where the village was used to carry out various events in preparation for the competition. Participants would swim to Motu Nui island staying there for days or weeks for the arrival of the seabirds until one participant found an egg. The participant then returned with the egg to Orongo and he (or his Chief whom he represented) was endowed as tangata-manu or bird-man. He was considered sacred and lived in ceremonial reclusion for a year. The last competition would have taken place in approximately 1867.

Ceremonial Village House, Orongo 

Just look at the size of the doors! However they got in I do not know.. they must have crawled on their bellies as they are rabbit sized holes. Glad for them that they were only used for a few weeks a year. The girls had so much fun running from house to house. It is forbidden to enter the houses and only some of them can you get close to. The info leaflet listed each area of interest by number and the girls were very excited to go off to find the next number and then ask Daddy to read out what was relevant about it. Thousands of petroglyphs have been engraved in the rocks of this area which shows testimony to the activity developed there.

Petroglyphs with bird man island in background

As Ross had requested 5 minutes to stop and look over at the island, apparently an excellent diving spot, I had little choice but to let the girls head back towards the tables of craft souvenirs they had spied at the entrance. After much negotiation (between myself and the girls) we only parted with a small amount pesos and came away with a pencil engraved with a Moai and a feather necklace. They were incredibly happy with these and they proved to be valuable tools for our walk back down to the main town of Hanga Roa. The pen was used to make marks on the map and the feather was a kind of compass. I love kids imaginations!

It was a very pleasant walk back towards Hanga Roa, skirting the edge of the crater and being afforded views from many angles. We then descended into forest where we stopped for a picnic. On exiting the forest we found ourselves at the edge of the airfield which was over run with wild horses! Once passing the airport we were back on the coast. It was a warm day and we were enjoying the cool breeze which was coming in off the sea. The track along the coast took us past a small cave which was noted for having rock art on its' ceiling. I wasn't too keen to climb down the deep steps just to come all the way back up again, as I was feeling pretty tired by this point, so I sent my appointed representative to go check it out first. Neither of us had high expectations that any rock art could still exist with any definition so close to the sea, so when I heard the exclamation of "Oh wow, you have to come down and look at this!" I knew that I should really make the effort. I have seen rock art in South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand and other African countries but nothing compared to this. The colours were still profound and the shapes very discernible as the traditional symbols of fertility and the paintings related to the bird man ceremonies. 

Rock Art

Jude was being carried in the backpack by this point so was quite content. I was beginning to fade quickly and we were hoping to get close to a road so that we might pick up a taxi. Time was also of the essence as one of the missionary families had kindly offered to look after the girls for the afternoon so that Ross and I could do some activities child free, and we were now getting quite tight on time. Continuing along the coastal path we popped out at a small harbour with much activity. Next to it was another Moai, just a single one this time. Of course, it was necessary to go and take a picture! I never realised that there would be quite so many on a such a small island.

Ahu Riata

Just on from here we managed to pick up a taxi back to our accommodation. The taxi was a car which had seen much use, with no shocks, doors which just about closed and the driver's seat was broken on one side so when he leaned back it did a kind of contorted twist backwards to one side. We were to learn that there are actually more cars on the island now than inhabitants! But the elderly driver was friendly and kindly gave Mary & Jude a mandarin each, which surprised me having heard how expensive fruit and veg is there. Now late for our babysitters, we dashed in and collected the necessary items for the girls and most importantly the address, and hopped into another taxi to go meet the Dutch family. Immediately on meeting them we felt very relaxed about leaving M&J. The girls, aged 8 and 10 were very friendly, confident and polite. They had a lovely small house with a nice garden and they engaged our girls quickly. To our surprise Mary was a little upset as we left, but of course, when we were gone she was fine after a few minutes.

Ross and I were hoping to hire a scooter for a couple of hours and do some exploring around the island. It is 24.6 km by 12.3 km, and roughly triangular in shape.

There are many sights of interest around the island and trying to do some of them in a couple of hours would not have been very realistic, so it was actually in our best interests that the scooters were hired for a minimum of 8 hours. 

So instead, we decided to go for a snorkel together at Tahai. This would have been the first proper diving we had done together in 6 years. We did snorkel together once in La Gomera 3 years ago, but I was 7 months pregnant with Jude, so it wasn't really much of a dive! I was quite apprehensive about the whole thing, but also determined to go for it. 

The water in Easter Island is a few degrees warmer than in Chile, about 20/21 degrees C. We had brought out my wetsuit from England on our last trip back knowing that we would be coming to Easter Island. It is an open cell 7mm wetsuit, so even I would not be getting cold in the water. My last memory of using the suit was trying to put it over my head, a very unpleasant experience. An open cell wetsuit is designed to stick to your skin for warmth and to prevent water from seeping inside. It is custom made for size and to get it on you have to wet it inside with soapy water. The thought of having to squeeze myself into this soapy wetsuit was off putting to say the least. But Ross was able to help me and is very experienced at putting these suits on. It was quite a fuss, but I managed it, but still with the same fear of inhaling soapy water whilst we tried to prise my head through into the hoodie. The suit felt tighter than I remembered it, which was a little odd to believe as I would have expected to be smaller now than I was 6 years ago. But of course, it hadn't been used in all that time either. Now mid afternoon, the sun had become quite hot, so after the fuss of putting on my wetsuit, bootees, weight belt, flippers, gloves, mask and snorkel, I had raised my core temperature by quite a bit.

Ready to brave the waters

Entering the water was refreshing after the long walk and the dashing around dropping the kids. The only part of me that noticed the temperature of the water was my face, hands and feet which were not covered in open cell neoprene. I started to relax and enjoy the calm, clean water. We had an ideal spot to get in, it was just like a large rock pool, protected from incoming surges, so I was able to swim around and get used to that feeling of being back in the water. The rocks below enticed a few small fish and I was enjoying seeing some life underwater. Ross caught up to me and we swam out into the open sea together where the depth started to open up to around 8-12m, the waves were around us and the fish life was becoming more prolific. Ross indicated to me to try a dive, so I breathed up, took out my snorkel, lifted my feet and descended. It was a nice feeling to be slowly moving down closer to the fish. When I reached the bottom I could feel that I was underweighted and so as I tried to remain quietly on the seabed I could feel my feet starting to rise up. I kept trying to hold onto the rocks around me but it was quite tricky, I was just too buoyant. There was a good variety of fish to see, many of which I could not name and had to ask Ross. I enjoyed watching a moray eel swimming around below and dived down to try to get a closer look.

Moray Eel up close

Our time passed by very quickly. There was plenty to see including brightly coloured parrot fish, tweezer butterfly fish (black, white, yellow with tweezer snoute, only found on island), surgeons (dark, large shoals), the long slim trumpet fish (grey or bright yello, swim with noses down), wrasse, and a relative of the pomparno which I recognised from our diving in South Africa. Ross was impressed I had remembered them!  Despite a lack of coral and although the fish species were all small, they were colourful and included some fish I had never seen before. Like the bright blue bag fish. I squeezed Ross's hand which is our universal language for "I see a fish" and pointed at the lovely dark blue shape which appeared to be eating from the rock. It swished about with movement of the gentle waves above it, the feathery appearance of its tail also fanning back and forth. Ross wagged his finger at me, indicating something negative so I immediately assumed that it was a poisonous fish, perhaps like a lionfish. So I crossed my fingers to indicate this is what I had understood. He then surfaced, took out his snorkel and said "No, it's a plastic bag. I checked it out this morning!"

I enjoyed the quiet swim back to shore, practising a few more dives down on the way. Ross praised me for diving well despite having been such a long time since I had last done it, which made me feel very pleased. The process of taking off my wetsuit was almost as bad as getting it on, but it was nice to feel the warm sun on my wet body helping me to dry off.

We had been invited to have dinner with the 2 families that evening, so we dashed back to the house where the girls were and found them very happy and reluctant to leave. Jude was in the bedroom playing with a box full of Littlest Pet Shop toys and was keen for me to buy something from her shop. Mary was outside playing in the little pop up house with the older girl. Dinner was just across the road so we didn't have far to go. Our hosts welcomed us and thanked us again for all the goodies we had taken for them. Dinner was just about ready so we sat down at the table outside, and after saying Grace we tucked into a delicious dinner of roast chicken, vegetables, salad, rice and gravy. We were also served fermented tea. I tasted it and guessed that it was cider and was most surprised that it was made from tea because usually I hate anything which tastes remotely of tea! The 4 girls had a lot of fun playing hide and seek between courses in the large garden which was full of banana, avocado and papaya trees. Biscuits and a jello pudding was served for dessert and the girls did us proud by eating everything that had been offered to them. The evening finished with some general adult chat inside the house, with the children winding down to a couple of episodes of Shaun the Sheep.

Our weary legs carried us the 10 min walk back to our accommodation and we were greeted by Maria the owner who had kindly made a big bottle of avocado leaf tea for Mary and Jude. Both girls had coughs but Mary's was a strong hack which drew gasps of "ooh, esta muy enferma!" at every cough. Avocado leaf tea is reputed for medicinal properties for the bronchioles and we had just been discussing this over dinner. So we had to make the girls drink it, even though they were not so keen on its liquorice taste. Needless to say that the girls collapsed into bed that night!