At the height of my frustration when buried in yards of code instead of pictures, I did think
'This is a hell of a way to enjoy yourself!'
Anyway, Day Three was the BIGGIE.
This is Part One (Oh my Gawd, how many parts to this?)
All day excursion with lunch, finishing with a dip in the Pacific if you had your cozzie. A lot to report so I have split it into three or I may just be blogged out before I finish it.
So, here goes.
First stop was the exotically named 'Bay That Is Good for Cleaning Fish'.OK, so I forgot the real name because I forgot to take a pic of the label at the gate.
Anyway I have an excuse.
On the way across the field to the first site, an attractive, young, American blonde said to me:
"Hi, I'm Dana"
Well, I thought, not the best chat up line I have ever heard.
But, as it was almost certainly the only one I was likely to get all day (and probably the day after that!), it worked with me and Dana and me spent some of the day together which was great.
Sometimes also separately or together with two Greek ladies whose names I have disgracefully forgotten but who were fun to be around.
Dana will appear later with me and a navel.
(Oh please! Grow up at the back there. I thought that you were past all the body part jokes now, Nephew Matthew. You are 35 for Gods sake))
But back to Cleaning Fish.
It's good for cleaning fish because it has a shoreline that isn't a sheer cliff, hundreds of feet high, it's sheltered and there are no sharks. Well, not many. And they are only small.
Smallish.
And don't snigger. If you have to clean your own fish, these things are important.
There were also moai and pukao all over, all the moai horizontal. This is one of a few.Apparently if someone annoyed you, another family or tribe for example, and you got mad enough, you pushed their moai down.
( 'You can't talk to me like that! I'll have your moai over if you don't watch your step'.)
Usually associated with a fair bit of argy bargy and no little bloodshed I expect.
Then they burned and pillaged your stuff and pushed your moai down.
Which accounts for all the pushed down moai all over the island.
For a change, this poor bloke never made it to the vertical.Attempts were made, hence the pile of stones but to no avail.
How do we know it was never erected?
Answer at the end, if I remember to put it in.
And pay attention in future.
Ranu Raraku
Next was, for me, the toppest site of all. All the sites were good but this was the best.
Ranu Raraku is the quarry where the moai were carved. Miles from the coast where they are to be erected of course, no point if it is too easy eh?
OK, you have seen the buried statues and the half carved ones still in the quarry on TV.
Forget it.
When you are slogging up a mountain towards the sticking out heads, in 30 degree heat, to see something that you never dreamed of actually seeing in your lifetime, then it was a hell of a buzz for me
It still gives me a whizz just looking at the photos and writing about it.
The moai were carved out of rock called volcanic tuff. Except that it ain't so tuff and can be carved with a tool made from harder stone. As tuff is not so hard, erosion is a big problem and some of the moai are well worn away.
Erosion is also the reason there are only heads sticking up. The hill is essentially making its' way to the sea and burying moai as it goes.
I make no apology for all the photos. It is such a stunning site and sight; I still can't quite believe that I have been there.
So settle down and enjoy.
This guy probably came off best. Left to rest in peace for eternity.He is huge. It's a pity there is no scale. As a guide though, I would maybe come up to the tip of his nose!
These guys made it out of the quarry.They will look out to sea for ever or until erosion catches up with them.
Lonely Moai?
Moai looking out over the Shropshire Hills?
Leaning moai with Andrea (our guide) for scale.
Lovely she was but no small cookie.
Leaning moai with me for scale.Good job my head wasn't any higher else my hair would have disappeared!
(Photo by Dana Graphic)
Moai in reposeAfter the moai extravaganza, Andrea said 'This way' and headed off up (and I mean up) a path previously only used by goats and people with oxygen and crampons.
I knew this was going to be a serious day as Andrea turned up in trainers. Usually she wore flip flops!
After much scrambling and mild panic on my part about having, sooner or later, to go down again, we reached the usual water filled volcanic crater.This one was for fun though.
Once a year, the young bucks put on paint and paddle across the lake on reed boats.
They then pick up bunches of bananas on poles and, possibly still carrying the reed boats, run round the crater and up the hill.
Then they pick up big bunches of more reed (and the reed boats and bunches of bananas?) to carry down to the lake before a final swim across. With or without their multiple bunches of reeds and bananas was not made clear.
By way of a change from swimming and running about, with or without reed boats, bunches of bananas on sticks and more reeds, the young bucks could take part in a 'Haka Pei"
This means you get to slide down steep grassy hills on banana leaf sleds at high speed. All going 'Wheeeeeeeee' probably.
Bit like Carding Mill Valley in Shropshire only there you use plastic fertiliser sacks instead of banana leaves.
And not many people get painted up.
And so to lunch. With my new good buddy, Dana.
Due to her idiosyncratic approach to travel and Easter Island trips in particular, Dana had managed to get herself on a 'lunch included' tour with a 'packed lunch'.
Of course, not having the 'included' lunch, she was banished to the outlying 'packed lunch, too mean to pay for the included lunch' table, on her own, with ants for company.
Well, of course, I did the chivalrous thing.
Reckoning that I would be better company than ants (it was close), I had my paid for, 'included lunch', with her and her, 'economy class, packed' lunch at her outlying, ant-ridden, table.
OK, just my little joke.
Dana is an elegant, attractive, blonde, engaging, friendly and intelligent lady from Colorado, currently working in TV in NYC. Good company she is. Lunch was a treat for me, except for the ants, which weren't actually very good company.
Thanks for that Dana.
Danas' Mom had a milestone birthday last week and Dana had a week in Colorado on vacation.
Hope the birthday party was a gas and hope you have many more Danas' Mom.
I suppose you just couldn't make Saturday night.
Request for Noushka. Can you produce before the Wembley Final or well after it? It's only a baby after all. You can have babies anytime, this might be Morecambes only chance at promotion. Think of Uncle Matthew rather than self, self, self. Aim for before the 20th or after it. Good luck and luv whenever.
More soon. With Danas' navel.
Brace Yourselves!
And, by the way, blog writing is a hell of a way to enjoy yourself. This brings lots of things, otherwise forgotten, back to me. And some people seem closer than they might other wise be.
OK it's sentimental old me.
Blame the bottle of Chablis!
Luv To All
BJIC
