Easter Island

February 19, 2019

Today the ship anchored near Easter Island. There was a long wait list for tender rides. Our tickets were for tender number 12. Due to the rough sea they were only able to get to tender ticket fifteen. They usually are able to get everybody to the port. I am extremely glad that I got to go because very few tourists ever get to go to the island. When we got called we made our way to the tender and saw our friends Frank and Philomena. We had plans to get a cab with them and see the Island together. After the tender delivered us safely to shore we got a driver who spoke only Spanish named Niu (New). He was saying something about a ticket but we weren’t sure what so we just started our journey. Frank and Philomena tried to talk to him using a small notecard with a few Spanish phrases but were mostly unsuccessful. When we got to our first stop we figured out what Niu was talking about when he said tickets. We had to go all the way back to the port to get tickets for the National Park. Then we went back to the first stop. We got out, showed a man our tickets, and proceed into the park. It was amazing. There were Maoi everywhere! They are big statues built by the early Rapa Nui people. Many people think that they are just heads and shoulders but they have arms also with hands on their waists. They are supposed to be kneeling but I couldn’t see the legs. There is only one with eyes throughout the whole island which we didn’t get to see. Some of them have hats. Before we arrived on the island we were told that they all have their backs to the ocean, but that was not true. All of them that were near the coast had their backs to the water but further inland they were placed randomly. They early Rapa Nui people had created these statues to protect the island. They built them by carving them out of rocks. Then heaving them up strait little by little and building walls underneath them so that the people who were pulling them up could rest. Once they were able to get one up strait they would put logs under it so that it could roll. The statue would split the logs as it rolled over so eventually they would run out of trees. Somebody told us that there were no trees on the island but they were very wrong. There were lots of trees. It was a bit like a jungle in some places. Niu drove us to a place with fifteen Maoi all in a row. It was stunning. We took some pictures then continued our tour. Our next stop was the beach. There were more Maoi there. We walked down to the water and there were tons of locals enjoying their Sunday afternoon at the beach. We went into the water. It was nice. It wasn’t warm, but it was much warmer than lake Michigan. We swam past most of the people to the deep part. It was cooler there. It was cleaner as well. We were able to see a few fish and some brown coral covering a few rocks but other than that it was pretty empty. We dried off and got back in the cab. We drove back to the port where I had a glass of lemonade and hopped on a tender back to the ship.