Everything I own, myself included, is damp. I don't mean that in the way 'damp' is used in romance novels - I mean that it's been raining off and on ever since we got to Easter Island, and before that I was either sweating or in the ocean, and so every bit of functional clothing I brought with me (jacket, sweatshirt, multiple pairs of leggings/pants, socks, sneakers, whatever) is either minorly or majorly wet. I'm hopeful that Santiago will dry me out, but it remains to be seen whether I ever get comfortable in the Southern Hemisphere or whether I'm destined to slowly rot.
But despite the rain, today was gorgeous. I got up in the predawn hours (which sounds more dramatic than 8am, but also true since sunrise is so late here) and spent some quality time with my journal and the internet while eating a quick breakfast and drinking bad coffee (Easter Island's specialty, all of which seems to be either instant coffee or, if you're fancy, convenience store cappuccino masquerading as a coffee shop delicacy). Marcus picked us up at 9:30, and we spent the day exploring some lesser-known (but no less fascinating) sites around the island. This included a set of moai who are facing the ocean, which are the only known statues that faced out to sea instead of in toward the villages. The light there, in early morning mist, was pretty magical.
Then we went to a cave, with a detour so that Marcus could shake some ripe guava from a tree so that I could eat one. The legend is that if you eat a guava you'll return to Easter Island, which I would be happy to do; Joann didn't eat one on the basis of not liking guava, but I think by that point she was already tired of being damp, so hopefully she protected herself from future damp adventures. Then we proceeded on to the caves, and as we were reaching the entrance the rain started in earnest - so we had to make a run for it across an ancient lava field, full of broken rocks and scraggly weeds and the occasional pile of animal dung (another Easter Island specialty).
But after dashing across the lava field, we darted down into what turned out to be a massive cave with multiple chambers and entrances. The cave was technically a lava tube, made when molten lava hollowed out the ground and then disappeared, and it felt very different than the water-carved caves I've seen in the US and Europe. Also, these caves had been lived in in the past, so there were piles of stones that Marcus claimed were beds, but if I had had to live in a cave several months a year, I probably would have tried to come up with something better than that to sleep on, Stone Age technology or no.
So we walked through the caves, and when we emerged on the other side the rain was gone. But we ended up taking a long lunch break to avoid more rain, during which I drank more bad coffee and Joann and I caught Marcus up on ISIS. Then we saw another couple of sites before going to the main attraction of the afternoon - Orongo, the village that played host to the Birdman competition every year from the 1720s to the 1860s. The Birdman cult came into effect as the people abandoned statue-making and royal prerogative started 'democratically' nominating a new leader every year - but their method of choosing a new leader was to gather every year at Orongo, wait for a specific type of bird to nest on a nearby island within view of Orongo, and then send an athlete from each tribe sprinting down the outer wall of a volcano, diving into the ocean, swimming to the other island, and searching for an egg from the birds. The first egg finder shouted back to Orongo, and the chieftain of his tribe became the Birdman (and the leader of the island) for the year.
This all ended after Peruvian slavers kidnapped almost everyone in the 1860s, then 'graciously' returned some of them with the gift of smallpox, which killed all but 111 of the Rapa Nui people. But before that, Orongo was pretty amazing. I asked Marcus if they were going to do any reenactments of the Birdman challenge for the 150th anniversary of the last challenge (next year), but he said a lot of them died during the attempt, so a reenactment probably wouldn't get many signups. Also, in case you're wondering, the winning athlete didn't become the Birdman, but he got a wife for his efforts - a woman who'd been kept in the 'virgin cave' for three months to keep her away from the sun so she'd be as fair as possible. Nowadays you just need an office job to achieve the same result, I guess.
sssanyway, Orongo was pretty awesome, and I particularly liked the view of the volcano caldera (click my instagram above to see it). After that, we said our sad farewells to Marcus, and then we walked around town for a bit so that Joann could buy souvenirs and I could eat ice cream. We came back to our hotel after that, foregoing dinner in the interest of napping/showering/not getting any wetter, which was a good call since it has rained most of the evening. And now, after lazing about most of the night, we're getting ready to go to the airport - our flight to Santiago is at 1am, which is going to make tomorrow interesting (but, as I've said repeatedly, hopefully less damp). And now that our Easter Island adventures have come to an end, it's time for me to put away the ipad and prepare for flight - more from South America tomorrow. Goodnight!
But despite the rain, today was gorgeous. I got up in the predawn hours (which sounds more dramatic than 8am, but also true since sunrise is so late here) and spent some quality time with my journal and the internet while eating a quick breakfast and drinking bad coffee (Easter Island's specialty, all of which seems to be either instant coffee or, if you're fancy, convenience store cappuccino masquerading as a coffee shop delicacy). Marcus picked us up at 9:30, and we spent the day exploring some lesser-known (but no less fascinating) sites around the island. This included a set of moai who are facing the ocean, which are the only known statues that faced out to sea instead of in toward the villages. The light there, in early morning mist, was pretty magical.
Then we went to a cave, with a detour so that Marcus could shake some ripe guava from a tree so that I could eat one. The legend is that if you eat a guava you'll return to Easter Island, which I would be happy to do; Joann didn't eat one on the basis of not liking guava, but I think by that point she was already tired of being damp, so hopefully she protected herself from future damp adventures. Then we proceeded on to the caves, and as we were reaching the entrance the rain started in earnest - so we had to make a run for it across an ancient lava field, full of broken rocks and scraggly weeds and the occasional pile of animal dung (another Easter Island specialty).
But after dashing across the lava field, we darted down into what turned out to be a massive cave with multiple chambers and entrances. The cave was technically a lava tube, made when molten lava hollowed out the ground and then disappeared, and it felt very different than the water-carved caves I've seen in the US and Europe. Also, these caves had been lived in in the past, so there were piles of stones that Marcus claimed were beds, but if I had had to live in a cave several months a year, I probably would have tried to come up with something better than that to sleep on, Stone Age technology or no.
So we walked through the caves, and when we emerged on the other side the rain was gone. But we ended up taking a long lunch break to avoid more rain, during which I drank more bad coffee and Joann and I caught Marcus up on ISIS. Then we saw another couple of sites before going to the main attraction of the afternoon - Orongo, the village that played host to the Birdman competition every year from the 1720s to the 1860s. The Birdman cult came into effect as the people abandoned statue-making and royal prerogative started 'democratically' nominating a new leader every year - but their method of choosing a new leader was to gather every year at Orongo, wait for a specific type of bird to nest on a nearby island within view of Orongo, and then send an athlete from each tribe sprinting down the outer wall of a volcano, diving into the ocean, swimming to the other island, and searching for an egg from the birds. The first egg finder shouted back to Orongo, and the chieftain of his tribe became the Birdman (and the leader of the island) for the year.
This all ended after Peruvian slavers kidnapped almost everyone in the 1860s, then 'graciously' returned some of them with the gift of smallpox, which killed all but 111 of the Rapa Nui people. But before that, Orongo was pretty amazing. I asked Marcus if they were going to do any reenactments of the Birdman challenge for the 150th anniversary of the last challenge (next year), but he said a lot of them died during the attempt, so a reenactment probably wouldn't get many signups. Also, in case you're wondering, the winning athlete didn't become the Birdman, but he got a wife for his efforts - a woman who'd been kept in the 'virgin cave' for three months to keep her away from the sun so she'd be as fair as possible. Nowadays you just need an office job to achieve the same result, I guess.
sssanyway, Orongo was pretty awesome, and I particularly liked the view of the volcano caldera (click my instagram above to see it). After that, we said our sad farewells to Marcus, and then we walked around town for a bit so that Joann could buy souvenirs and I could eat ice cream. We came back to our hotel after that, foregoing dinner in the interest of napping/showering/not getting any wetter, which was a good call since it has rained most of the evening. And now, after lazing about most of the night, we're getting ready to go to the airport - our flight to Santiago is at 1am, which is going to make tomorrow interesting (but, as I've said repeatedly, hopefully less damp). And now that our Easter Island adventures have come to an end, it's time for me to put away the ipad and prepare for flight - more from South America tomorrow. Goodnight!
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