RAPA NUI DAY TWO: Part Two

Last stop on Day Two was at a place called Tahai.


By the sea, as you can see, and it is a group of five moai, on an ahu, and two lone moai.

Also there is a fallen down moai and a boat house base.


This is our guide, Andrea, by the boat house.


Tradition has it that, when the two canoes, each bearing a thousand people from Hiva, landed, they turned the boats over for shelter. The form was continued and it is actually not a bad design for a fairly temporary house.

The foundation stones are laid, the boat ribs and keel pole are erected and lashed into place and the whole lot covered in reeds, grasses and banaba leaves which actually makes it quite weatherproof. (Note: Banaba leaves are leaves from the banaba plant that grow well on Rapa Bui.) Add a patio out front and you have a fair old beach house.



Behind Andrea you can just make out a fallen moai, broken in three. They always break in three apparently.

This one though was being nicked by some locals for an overseas collector who wanted it as a water feature or something back home. How he was going to get it home is anybodies guess. Hand luggage rules are pretty flexible but, come on!
Anyway the locals messed up and broke it, were caught moai handed so were roundly punished. One of them though was a stone mason and he made some eyes for an adjacent moai to show his repentance.


Scary stuff ain't it.

I did mess with the colour a bit though.

The eyes are quite interesting, Usually the whites are made of coral and the pupils of obsidian, which is a volcanic glass.

One way of telling if a fallen moai was ever erected, as opposed to the erectors being clobbered or having an attack of the 'sod its' before they got it into position, is the eye sockets.

The sockets were always carved after the moai was erected.

So, no sockets, it has never been erected and vice versa.

There is some debate as to whether or not the eyes were in place all the time or just popped in for special occasions. Can't see how that can be resolved really

What is for sure is that very few eyes survive or have been found on the island. This could be because not many moai actually had eyes or, possibly because coral, apparently, burns very well so the coral whites could just have gone up the chimney.


The group of five moai (well, four and a half really. The one on the left end is a bit of a titch) is really just a group of five moai. I don't remember anything special being said about them,







They do look a bit spookier courtesy of iPhoto though.












The two odd bods, one with eyes and one without, again, apart from the story about the repentant stone mason, were also unremarkable.








In so far as 15 metre high, 20 ton plus, blocks of stone, carved with stone tools little harder than the stone being carved, transported God knows how for 20 kilometers and popped in place by the sea, with eyes and top knots can ever be unremarkable.








So that was Day Two.

Day Three to follow if you have the stamina.

Kevin has put loads of wedding pics on The Cheese Empanada blog, link somewhere on this page, if you want a change from moai.

BJ

OOPS

Sorry Folks

Two Posts about Easter Island have popped up in a time line associated with when I started to write them NOT when I when I published them.

So I am afraid that you all will have to go to the posts of the 11th and 13th March 2007 to find out about my trip to Easter Island.

I will try and re date subsequent posts so they read sequentially.

But Blogspot may win!

BJ

KIDS

As those of you who have been paying attention will know, there have been a number of assorted children making appearances in this blog.

I thought it would be nice to give them a page of their own 'cos they were all smashing and it's easy to overlook them in the weddings melee. (Actually it is not so easy to overlook Pipi as our relationship was, primarily, him hitting me)

So here goes

BEN

Ben is the son of Sian, who Kevin has known since he first came to Chile, and her partner Christian who I found to be a proper gent.

Sian is Welsh but, hey, somebody has to be.

The one with the hat is me. The hat is because I was wind burnt the day before the church wedding. The shades are because it was sunny and 'cos they look dead cool with the hat.

Pity I look more like Jungle Jim than Brad Pitt.



This is Sian who is a lovely person, if a bit on the small side. I mean she is petite not one of the Seven Dwarves.

Christian, well, heaven knows what he was up to. He isn't in any of my 1656 photos so seems to have been keeping out of the way.

Perhaps he is on the run again.

Anyway if either of you are reading this, a nice pic of the three of you would be great to complete my collection.








Benji with Vilma who seemed to adopt him for a while.

Ben is in his 'Magnificent Seven' costume. Ben will shortly successfully protect the Mexican villagers from bandits and ride to the Swiss border on a stolen German motor bike to escape and be foiled by the frontier defences.

Or maybe I have my films mixed up.













RICARDO & DAUGHTER

To my shame, I have forgotten his daughters name. Sorry.

Look closely at the guy pointing. Attached to his left leg is his daughter who, at this point, wouldn't be separated from him











Some Time Later

Here she is getting stuck in in the pool and taking few prisoners

















Whirling with her Dad.

(Send me your e mail address and I will let you have the video)













And generally larrikin about.



The antidote for shyness seems to be a tummy full of food and a pool!

Later on she appeared to pull a boy but modesty forbids me to go into details.










VALENTINA



Valentina, called Vale for short is Vilmas daughter.

Lovely child who seems to have her Mums good humour and graceful good looks.

Excepting when Vilma was wearing 'those shoes' on the non Stag night. Not exactly graceful then eh love?






Vale getting into the spirit of things.

Just pop of course.

I think









Mother and Daughter.

Nice smiles all round.

In the background on the right is Karen, a friend of Marias from work. Her birthday is 1 April, April Fools Day I told her.

Not in Chile it seems. They have November Fools Day there.









This is Vale in the dress she wore to the wedding. She was the only child not to go in the pool.

Apparently, she loved the dress so much, she wouldn't take it off to put her swimming kit on!

Vale also loves taking photos. After she had exhausted most of the disposable cameras put on each table, I sent her off round the tables with my camera to take pictures for me.

And pretty good they were too. It seems a lovely young girl with a big smile can get better reactions from the subject than a white haired old git.

Funny that!





TOMAS


Tomas is the son of Carola, Marias sister, and Ricardo.

He likes Sponge Bob Square Pants and playing on the computer.

He finishes school at lunchtime, comes home, shakes hands, says "Hello" in English, if he wants to, and then seems to disappear to the computer.

Likes playing with balloons. Kevin had balloons at his non Stag night and they went down a treat with the younger guests.






FELIPE

Felipe is Carola and Ricardos youngest son. Known as Pipi. Seen here with his Mum who is smiling mainly due to the large pisco sour she is holding I suspect.

I asked Kevin what Pipi liked to do so I could get a present for him. Kevin said he fell over a lot. Not a great deal of help really.

Pipi just frowned at me to begin with. Then, as he got used to me, he hit me a lot. His latest habit is biting people. Fortunately I didn't get to know him that well!


FRANCISCO

Francisco usually called Pancho, the eldest of the trio. Carola is his Mum but he has his own Dad.

Pancho is big on transport. Cars, buses, aeroplanes, helicopters etc. I took him a model of a London bus. He was studying it intently for a while. Looking for the emergency exit would you believe. Now that's what I call a serious interest.





CAROLA AND RICARDO

Not strictly children but nice people who deserve a mention.

Carola works for LAN, the national airline. Apparently she knows what really goes into corn flakes from the cargo that comes into Chile.

Ricardo has his own company, pours a mean glass of champagne and is an all round good guy.






Felipe waiting to be let out to hit me some more.














ALFONSO


The baby of the family and son of Marias other sister, Alejandra, called Channy, and her husband, Pablo.

I would love to be able to say that Alfonso was called 'The Fonz". But he isn't.

Smiley and happy, Alfonso is everybodys friend. He loves being carried around. Channy must have arms of steel.










Me doing my carrying Alfonso turn. It was good fun actually. We bonded by sharing an empanada. Then my arm muscles were throbbing a bit so I gave him to Kevin!















Family shot.

Channy, Pablo and Alfonso.

Pablo has a new camera and took lots of shots with it. I saw some shots he had taken whilst in the States and the detail was amazing.

A disc with your wedding shots on it would be very much appreciated Pablo. You seemed to get places where I didn't so you should have some good ones. Particularly the ones where Channy was doing her 'Titanic' pose!




Alfonso is so popular he sometimes disguises himself to try and get some peace and quiet.

Pity he picked Elvis as his disguise of choice.

Not sure that would go unnoticed down the mall on a Saturday.

And the bib is a bit of a giveaway.









LAST BUT NOT LEAST, SALVADOR


Son of Helen, who was Kevins line boss when he first came to Chile, and Claudio.

I met Salvador before when he and Helen visited about 18 months ago so it was great to see how he had grown.







He does like a drink.

Mind you, so does his Mum and Dad!

Or so I am told.





The way to Salvadors heart is via ice cream. This disappears from his bowl faster than you can spoon it in.













Nice family group.

Helen and Claudio are on the champers.

Salvador may be on Mogadon as he doesn't like going to sleep!










DO NOT LET THIS FOOL YOU!

He is probably good for quite a few hours yet

Unless it really was Mogadon
















So that's the kids.
If that bored you wait til I start on the 60+ guests (No. Not the ones over 60, smarty pants)

And the moai!


Bye For Now

BJ

GRUB

EASTER ISLAND

No, there is no cannibalism on Easter Island.

The food was good but the choice a bit limited in the hotel where I was so I wouldn't have liked to stay for a fortnight.

Evening meals were made a delight by the lovely Ema who looked after me very well with lots of smiles. Always makes a meal go down better I think.




PERUVIAN LUNCH

The day Niall, Felicia and Steve arrived, all the Brits plus Vilma went out for lunch at a Peruvian restaurant. As you do.
To be honest, I thought that it was much the same as a Chilean restaurant but maybe I missed the nuances of Peruvian cuisine.
But a good time was had by all even if the new arrivals were a bit bog eyed through lack of sleep


(ONE OF) MARIAS HEN PARTIES

Quite an interesting selection of 'nibbles' on the table. Crisps, nuts etc, the usual stuff plus two big pink 'sausages'. Except that they are not sausages!

Note also that Maria is drinking her Coke through a sausage!

Use your imagination.




MORE SAUSAGES

Carolina brandishing a sausage lolly.

Maria wearing a blindfold (don't ask) and the latest 'must have' fashion accessory, a sausage pendant.

These are the tame pics. Marias Mum had to leave the room with embarrassment when I was looking at one of her and, you guessed it, a sausage in each hand!



THE CIVIL WEDDING RECEPTION

Mamy LLanos decided to self cater for the civil reception and very good it was too.
Preparations started mid morning with a cows worth of steaks defrosting and went on most of the day.

This is Carolina, Marias sister boiling something up at the last minute (service at 6.30)




SAMPLES


Crab Sticks with lemons














Beetroot and green beans













A few steaks















Hors d'oevres, well ravished and not to survive much longer.

And a duck napkin holder.

You always get napkins when you eat in Chile, out or at home. When Maria came to England she was surprised at the lack of napkins.







Empanadas of course














Avocado and palm hearts














And all washed down with champers, pisco sours, beers.

Here is Ricardo doing a splendid job distributing the champers for the toast to the H.C.














So that's it for now folks. Just in case you think ' Surely to God he must be running out of stuff by now', don't you believe it.

There are two more episodes from Easter Island, the civil ceremony and a few others I have up my sleeve.

So you can't rest easy in your beds just yet!

Sympathy to Mike G. Seeing AFC Telford haemorraging points must be hard. Keep the faith.

BJ