Nov 7, 8 Easter Island

Model?

A few facts I didn’t know about Easter Island. First, Easter Island is the most remote island in the world. It’s airport is a little over five hours from the next closest commercial airport. What that means, and I’m not sure I can explain this correctly, but planes can’t depart for Easter Island until they are cleared by the Easter Island airport. What this means is as a plane is cleared for approach to Easter Island the airport runway can’t be used by any other aircraft, because an aircraft approaching may not be able to turn around or reach the next airport in the event of a runway closing. So this severely limits the number of flights coming to the Island each day. Second, as we approached the Island I saw this magnificent 11,000 foot runway and marveled how an Island the size of Easter Island could have such a long runway. Didn’t know this was a backup landing strip for the Shuttle program, fortunately it was never needed, so in some ways my tax dollars at work.

Alternate Landing site Shuttle

Again I can’t say it enough that this blog is not meant to be an encyclopedia, but more the things that strike me and I think that might be of interest to others. The thing I first think of are the Moai, the carved stone torsos you see so many pictures of. There were many tribes on the island, and each tribe would erect a Moai of their Chief. It has been documented there were 887 of these on the island. All were “thrown down” by the waring groups towards the end of the 1800’s. It is believed they were erected from 1100CE to 1680 CE. The recent photos are of Moai that have been restored in the 1990’s.

Interesting is the quarry, the volcanic rock was rough carved and separated from the cliff face and then slid down into a hole and half buried, then was carved and once finished on top dug our and finished on the bottom. Also interesting is all the conjecture on how they moved them to the final place. Some of you may have seen the new National Geographic video of them walking the Moai, this theory is laughed at by the two Archaeologists we had that lead the tours. These two gentlemen have been working on the island for 40 and 55 years respectively.

Moai under construction in the quarry

Another interesting area of the island is Rano Kau, a 1,063 foot tall extinct volcano at the southern tip of the island. We hiked up to get this shot from the rim and as we approached the island our 757 jet flew CW and CCW  around the island so all the passengers could get a good look at the island from 1,700 feet. Nice when you’re on a charter.

Later that evening we were entertained by a young group of dancers trying to maintain the traditional Island dances but interweave some more modern music and steps. After the presentation was finished the dancers invited us Gringos up to dance with them, well of course I did, it was fun. 









Click the play button on the video below to see the group dancing 1 minute