Rapa Nui - Easter Island Travel Guide 🇨🇱 Sacred Mountains - Travel & Discover

Everyone dreams of visiting heavenly places that are well known in the rest of the world as destinations touched by a divine hand. One natural beauty, capable of taking one's breath away, isn't located on the other side of the world but in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and it's called Easter Island. This bit of triangular land, which was born in the Pacific Ocean as a result of consolidated lava and ash from three now dormant volcanoes, keeps within its coasts the most advanced Polynesian culture. It's important worldwide as the largest open-air archaeological museum, UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's also one of the most mystifying places on Earth, possessing a history that remains as unclear as it is evocative. Three million years ago, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, at a depth of almost 3,000 metres, a huge volcano began to rise up. This was the birth of Poika, the first of the big volcanoes, which now forms the eastern edge of the island. The coastline is dominated by high cliffs, moulded through the millennia by erosion from Pacific swells, and as a result large beaches haven't formed. Long before Europeans were able to sail the high seas, skilled Polynesian mariners had already ventured far into the ocean, exploring and colonising even the most remote Pacific islands, among them Rapa Nui. The nature of the geology of the island is such that there are many caves, called ana, around the coast of the island. They were used in the past by the islanders as temporary or permanent dwellings. This cave played a major role in the history of Rapa Nui because of its connection to the ceremony of the Tangata Manu, the bird cult. On the ceiling of the cave are red, white and black coloured cave paintings. Today, volcanic cones are found at each point of the island. The largest, Rano Kau, is easily visible from space. These three volcanoes gave rise to numerous volcanic cones, providing Rapa Nui with its typical relief, dotted with craters, soft hills and lava fields. Rano Kau isn't known for its giant moai or dramatic ruins, but for its natural beauty. Glistening lakes and marshes dot the floor of the crater. On Easter Island, petroglyphs are located in every sector of Rapa Nui, where there are suitable surfaces. Favoured locations are smooth areas of lava flow, referred to as papua, or on smooth basalt boulders. Most of these surfaces occur along coastal areas and are often associated with major ceremonial centres. Aside from the monolithic statues, the birdman image best represents Easter Island. At the Orongo site, the petroglyph motif evolved from an elongated form into the highly stylised developed design. Rapa Nui National Park contains archaeological evidence consisting mainly of ahu, or ceremonial structures, houses and ceremonial villages and moai, or megalithic statues. The Orongo Ceremonial Village, which was probably the centre of a complex of religious practices related to the birdman cult, consists of over 50 semi-subterranean stone houses, built in contiguous groups, located on the rim of the Rano Kau crater, below a towering cliff. Rano Raraku and Rano Kau were each believed to embody aspects of Rapa Nui identity, history and mythological narrative. Each was uniquely exploited for the main purpose of expressing the shared cultural awareness of deeply ingrained and ancient status alignments. The biggest and most valuable archaeological site on the island, Rano Raraku, was a quarry for about 500 years, until the early 18th century, and supplied the stone from which about 95% of the moai, or statues, were carved. The incomplete statues in the quarry are remarkable, both for their number, for the inaccessibility of some that were high on the outside crater wall, and for the size of the largest. At 21.6 metres in height, almost twice that of any moai ever completed, and weighing an estimated 270 tonnes. On the outside of the quarry are a number of moai, some of which are partially buried to their shoulders, in the spoil from the quarry. The moai are gigantic stone monoliths. 887 moai can be found on Rapa Nui. The moai, or statue, are believed to represent sacred ancestors, who watch over the villages and ceremonial areas. They range in height from 2 metres to 20 metres, and are for the most part carved from a distinctive yellow-brown volcanic tuff, found only at the great quarry on the Rano Raraku volcano. They were carved out of the matrix of the rock, using simple picks named tokai, made of hard basalt, and then lowered down the slopes into previously dug holes. Ahu Tapitokura moai has the biggest moai on Easter Island, at 11 metres in height. It's the largest moai transported from the Rano Raraku quarry. The side of Ahu Tapitokura is near the water's edge. There lies a sacred roundish smooth stone, which doesn't appear to be volcanic in origin. This stone is called Tapitokura, which means the navel of light. It's believed that it represents the navel of the earth, and was supposedly brought to the island by the leader of the first islanders to arrive here. Of all the ahu in Easter Island, the most prestigious one is certainly Tongariki, which has 15 statues located in front of the Rano Raraku quarry, less than 2 kilometres away. Ahu Tongariki is the largest ceremonial platform on Rapa Nui. The statues, weighing up to 30 tonnes each, were carried 150 metres inland. These statues have fully carved eye sockets, which archaeological findings indicate were brought alive with inserted eyes of white coral and red scoria, or black obsidian pupils. The giant stone statues of Easter Island have brought the island fame and have fascinated scores of scholars, travellers and artists. Their distinctive stone faces appear locked in silence, sentinels in stone that convey both power and tragedy. Some of the moai have large cylindrical pieces of red stone, known as pukau, extracted from the small volcano of Punapau, as headdresses. These are believed to denote special ritual status. The statues and ahu stand out clearly and dramatically in the landscape, but the petroglyphs and the paintings are almost always more obscure. Located in the Oroi region, the Ahu Akahanga is a site in ruins. Some call it the king's platform, or the ruler's platform. The ruler, Hotu Matua, is believed to be buried close to this place. According to island tradition, the colonising expedition of 50 people in two canoes was led by King Hotu Matua. Rapa Nui was settled around 300 AD by Polynesians, probably from the Marquesas, who brought with them a holy stone age society. The beach at Anakena is only one of two sandy beaches on the island. This is the most Polynesian looking part of the island, a true paradise with a grove of coconut palms that stretches to a white sand beach and a calm blue cove of warm Pacific waters. It's believed to be the first place where the family of Hotu Matua landed after navigating the Pacific Ocean, as well as the residential centre of ancient rulers. The idyllic setting here is interrupted by an ahu with six moai, a stark reminder that one has not left Easter Island. The distinct features of the moai, with carvings on their backs, are accentuated by the red scoria top knots or pukaus on their heads. The Tahai Ceremonial Complex is the most important religious and political centre of the Marama tribe. It's a vast megalithic site consisting of three platforms. It's unique in that the statues erected on it are all very different from each other, both in scale and shape. There's a large figure in the centre, with two figures of similar size on its left. The Ahu Koteriki has one moai, which has been restored with its pukau on the head and eyes made with white coral and red scoria. It's believed that they represent locals, ancestors of those who built them. Why they were built is not known, but it's thought that they might have been constructed to pay homage to the dead deified ancestors of the Rapa Nui people. The mystery and the beauty of the landscape around the moai makes Easter Island a must for any traveller, but the landscape was different in the past. The first islanders found a land of undoubted paradise. Archaeological evidence shows that the island was covered in trees of various sorts, including the largest palm tree species in the Ahu Akivi is situated 15 kilometres from the quarry. It's been estimated that the moai at this site were probably transported and erected after 1400 AD. Rapa Nui National Park contains one of the most remarkable cultural phenomena in the world. An artistic and architectural tradition of great power and imagination,