Ms. Caine's South America Adventures

Thursday, August 13^th – Easter Island

I simply can’t imagine waking up each morning and not being able to go on a trek! What an amazing way to live! This morning’s trek was to the oldest volcano on the island. This volcano is over 3 million years old!!!! The hike was magnificent! We walked all along the cliffs by the coast and were able to get amazing views! With the sun shining on our backs we began to journey inland a bit and came across a very different moai. They are not sure why this moai is here in this location…but of course there is a legend that goes with it! J The name of the statue is Heva.

The story goes that Heva was quite upset about the situation on the island and was opening her mouth and complaining loudly. That is why the statue has an open mouth. Sebastian, our guide today, was telling us that the mouth quite frequently fills with water during heavy rains!

Next to this statue were a couple of caves. In the first tiny cave that we crawled into, there was a “trygolyph” inside! The trygolyph is a drawing done on the rock. In the picture below you can get an idea of what it looked like. It was super dark in the tiny cave…but I did the best I could to get a picture. I came out of the cave and started teasing Sebastian saying that I thought that this drawing perhaps was providing evidence that aliens were on Easter Island at some point. (It looks like one to me! Lol)

We then continued on our hike to make it to the top of the oldest volcano. This part of the island had very few rocks, unlike the rest of the island. We walked through tall grass up to the top. The prize was definitely at the top when you stopped and saw the views….simply majestic! I tried to capture it in the pictures below…but you really need to come here and experience it!

We ended our trek by hiking down the volcano to the van. On the way down we had spectacular views of the quarry that we were at yesterday! All in all the 3 ½ hour hike was an amazing adventure!!!

In the afternoon we visited the 15 moai. This platform was reconstructed in the 1990's after a tsunami. It was a joint venture with the Japanese. The platform was amazing! You can see in the pictures below! Then we visited the magnetic rock...and the beach! Amazing afternoon!

View from the highest volcano!

Petroglyph inside the cave....kind of makes you wonder about the alien theory! :) lol

broken moai in a cave...they're not sure how it ended up there!

One of the 15 moai! As you look at the pics I've posted...notice how very different their faces are! Each one is representative of someone who died. They would come "alive" when coral eyes were placed in the eye sockets. The coral eyes were all stolen or destroyed when the various clans would be in conflict. Destroying the eyes was just one of their political means of showing victory or control!

Mom and I in front of the 15!

The last standing moai. This moai was documented as the last one standing in the 1840's. Although it is obviously toppled now...journals from explorations have proven that it was the last one that remained standing on the island.

The magnetic rock! This rock was believed to have been brought to the island from the island they originally came from. The king brought it here to capture it's powers.