Rapa Nui [10], Chile

The day was turning out to be sunny and the usual culprit, dark clouds, lingered about. Today I headed out to the nearest extinct volcano to Hanga Roa town,  Rano Kau. Together with Martha, Judith and Opheli, we headed north from the coast and towards the mountain. After a short walk, I revisited my first experience of a moai, Ahu Raita, at Hanga Piko  port. I passed by several wooden houses with corrugated iron roof tops. The surrounding was pleasantly densely vegetated with swaying coconut palms, copse of banana plants and a myriad of decorative foliage and flowering plants. At another location, I entered what seemed like a botanical garden. Plants were arranged in a formal manner with names which included decorative ground plants, fruit trees, forest trees, ferns and ornamentals. I really enjoyed this gem, surrounded by free flowing tropical plants. I wondered what the native plants of this island were. The man-made green lung  served to develop and propagate plant materials for future planting on the island. A little distance away, I walked under a canopy of tall and slender forest trees. I tried to look for some signpost identifying the name of this tree. Were they Sophora toromiro, the native tree now extinct in the wild. It was wonderful to see bird life flourishing in this area. Apart from that, animal life was transparently empty. The walk ascended toward the gently sloping mountain. A signpost read “Te Ara O Te Ao - Llamado tambien  “El camino del mando” esta ruta evoca antiguos rituales que culminaban en orongo” which translated means “The Way of Control” this route evokes ancient ritual culminating in Orongo”. Was this an ancient route to the top of the crater?  Part way, I could see the green but barren Mount Tareveka and conical but flat ttopped Puna Pau. The later part of the walk was on a grassy scrub like vegetation.

After about an hour and a half walk, I reached the top. This was the crater rim of extinct Rano Kau, a volcanic caldera on the south-western tip of the island. It was a spectacular and exhilarating sight. The south to western side was surrounded by the deep blue ocean and on the northern side, the distant Poike Peninsula jutted above the parched land below. At the same time it was surreal to look into the freshwater crater lake itself. The sides descended steeply in streaks of green and brown about two hundred meters. Patches of green vegetation clanged to the sides together with brown smooth bare rock surfaces. In some places, it looked like a scree of scoria rocks. The western rim had partially collapsed and this exposed the striking blue of the sea. It resembled a huge cauldron. At one point, I carefully climbed on a rock that seemed to be hanging off the cliff. I nervously looked into the carter. The surface of the lake was covered with totara reeds and other aquatic plants. This composition had created hundreds of lakes and islands. In the exposed surfaces, water reflected strongly the deep blue of the sky. Standing here, at about 324m, gave me a full perspective and spectacular  views  of the triangular shaped island. Boulders of rocks hung precariously  of the steep side. I walked along the rim which gave a different perspective of the crater and its surroundings. A few bird dashed in and out of the grassy fields around the top of the rim. At one point, Mataveri Airport was clearly visible. One critical aspect that was significantly missing was the moai. There were none to be seen. Why? Had they been removed or had they just fell into the watery graves of the crater lake  or over the sides of the volcano into the ocean due to natural geographical activities. The crater rim can be walked almost completely, apart from the collapsed bit,  but it is deceiving. It does require considerable amount of time to walk this. At one point of the walk, I climbed onto some rocks that  jutted out precariously from the side of the rim. I nervously crawled onto it. I looked over my shoulder. It was a long vertical drop into the mashes of the crater lake. I felt as if I was floating above the lake like a hovercraft. I wished I could fly at will like the birds that often flew by dipping and swerving in and out of the crater. Just some distant away lay a petroglyphs carved onto a volcanic rock with an image with a head of a bird and body of a slumped man. This is the vision of the ancient settlers of a Birdman, a culture that perhaps co-existed at the latter stages and preceded the moai culture. There was still some distance to walk on the eastern rim.  Instead, I  walked away towards another fascinating site at the south-western tip of the crater rim, Orongo Village.

 

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