An “Easy” Day - Easter Island Part 5

[Kyle]Two days after getting rained out at Rano Raraku, we returned to present ourselves to the now familiar faces of the staff, gave them our line about needing a little more time and were readmitted. We meandered around, enjoying the strange atmosphere of a nice grassy park that seemed to be sprouting giant, friendly statuary waiting for the right moment to be harvested.

After a while, a couple of tour busses disgorged their contents and the serene morning took on too much of a Disneyland feel for our tastes. There’s something tragic about these great constructions of humanity surviving for hundreds of years only to end up as a background in some yob’s selfie as he flashes some made up gang sign he saw in a boy band video. Watch out Facebook, here comes a bunch of posts: “Bro, Kickin’ it with the E.I. Heads!” Groan.

We walked back to Tongariki, where we were able to sit in the grass of the big square and reverently admire their magnificence in relative peace. The sun tracked across the sky and the changing shadows slowly highlighted previously hidden features. We gazed up at them and imagined out loud to each other what it must have been like when this square was full of people who had dressed in their finest tapa and feathers to attend some grand ceremony where yet another moai was unveiled for the world to see. What a magnificent time that must have been, when a fertile land gave rise to people of such great stature. We looked up at them again and couldn’t help but wonder: If the people were so large, how enormous must have been their bunnies?

{Photos to follow}