Rapa Nui[4], Chile

The alarm rang and I scrambled quickly to turn it off. There were three roommates in the cramped up dorm. No one seemed disturbed. Quietly I sneaked out of the room and hurriedly changed. It was 4.30am. It was dark outside and in the dining hall, Martha and Judith sat smiling. They had a hired car and I decided to join them this morning to travel towards the south-east coast to visit the much publicised  Ahu  Togariki. Just outside Hanga Roa, the road conditions turned for the worse. Martha on the wheel had to be on her wits avoiding the numerous pot holes that became a feature of these coastal roads. It was tricky at this time of the day. We left early just to catch the sunrise. About forty-five minutes on the bumpy coastal road, we reached the site. The day was just breaking into dawn with pale diffused light in the sky. However, it was dark on the ground. I walked through a small gate into a compound demarcated by a meter high stacked stone wall. I slowly walked into the compound over protruding rocks that sometimes moved under my feet and tall grasses laden with moisture. The air was still and chilly. In the eastern end , I could faintly make out statues lined up on a platform. On the left, a high cliff rose above the coast and on the right, the land was flat with shrub like features. In the west, the M-shaped  silhouettes of Rano Raraku rose above the flat ground, completely dark and featureless. As dawn approached, the sky turned magnetic indigo with a burst of reddish hue on the ocean  just above horizon. However, the sky was pregnant with low clouds. The orange burst of the rising sun’s rays spread like wild-fire across the horizon. These lights reflected strongly against the moving thick patches of clouds -  a mixed shade and hues of orange, yellow and pink. These colours  intertwined with the indigo, purple and violet of the sky creating a wonderful and spectacular display of morning light. The sun itself, however, was engulfed in a thick wall  of grey clouds. In the foreground, silhouettes of the fifteen moais of Ahu Tongariki stood tall against the darkening clouds and grey ocean. Although, I stood over a hundred meters away, it was powerful. No features, silent and unmoved, yet these fifteen stone statues lined up against a dramatic landscape stopped me in my tracks to ponder and to acknowledge their presence.  I was drawn into its magic. It was a surreal sight but impressive indeed.  

I walked closer and stopped beside some stone rubble to just to take in the emerging sight. Birds began to mingle around and continued with their chattering. The sun had now risen and emerged as a swirling ball of white light with magnetic fiery colours on its fringes. The blue sky appeared in between to fill up the vast colourful sky. The diffused light shone onto the restored moais revealing their individual features. Only one moai had a scoria topknot. All the majestic moais faced inland towards their mountain birthplace. Their heights varied with one very tall, perhaps 10 meters. The Ahu, longest on the island, was made up of rocks stacked up to a meter high.   I could see a few people, wrapped in warm cloths and huddled together, whom had travelled in the wee hours to capture this moment. Each with their own space to witness and contemplate the sight before them. In the foreground beyond the moais, the ocean glistened mirroring the sky above, like a sheet of glass. As daylight broke , I realised that stone rubble was in fact a single fallen maoi facing skyward. Green blades of grasses and some flowering plants appeared on the levelled ground around me. Towards the north, a sporadically vegetated conical mountain rose high above the ocean in Peninsula Poike. Streaks of sunburst managed to penetrate through the dense clouds and cast a golden-yellow sheen over the peninsula’s barren rolling mountain slopes.  Below its steep cliff, sprays of mist hovered above the crashing ocean waves. Towards the west, over a vast meadow of grasses and green shrubs, Rano Raraku, the birthplace of the enigmatic moais. Now, its rocky serrated steep slopes exposed. As I explored round the stone-walled compound, there were several petroglyphs , including a fish, etched into the rocks lying on the ground.  A young woman in a blue jacket caught my eye. I had noticed her earlier standing nearby. She watched the emerging day in silence, adoring the sight before her. She held a hot water flask and a maté pot, a familiar sight and favourite pastime of Argentinians,  which she sipped occasionally.

Martha, Judith and I decided to leave Ahu Tongariki early and planned to climb up to the summit of the volcanic Maunga Poike in the peninsula. We drove inland. The roads were no longer paved. The landscape looked alien to a tropical island. Volcanic rocks were strewn across the land with hardly any trees. I was pleased to see a clump  of short trees that struggled to survive in this harsh earth. Beyond  the rocky meadow, the mountain slopes were only covered with short grasses. On Peninsula Poike, horses roamed feeding on the grasses laden with morning dew in the cool morning behind fences. This mountain, like Raro Raraku was devoid of trees except a few precious clumps. Strangely, there were no sight of any volcanic rocks anywhere on the rolling hill slopes. It seemed that efforts had been taken to remove these volcanic rocks from the mountain. If so, why? What purpose was this, perhaps a huge exercise, undertaken? We could not find an access to the trail up the mountain. Martha and Judith decided to continue towards Anakena Beach. From there, they would continue to walk along the western coast back to Hanga Roa. It worked out well for me as I had transport to return to Ahu Tongariki and further explore the volcanic crater lake, Rano Raraku. Not long after a scenic drive, we reached  Anakena Beach.  

28.11.09

 

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