Around the World for the 1st time [Day 10] Rapa Nui Day 3

Ahu Tongariki

We woke up early today to go to Tongariki because we had heard that early morning Tongariki is fantastic. It is about 20 km from our lodge in Hanga Roa to Tongariki. It takes 30 minutes by car.

When we arrived at Tongariki and were waiting for the sunrise, it started to rain. It was quite a bit of drizzle, and we waited in the car shivering with cold. Then the sky started to lighten and we went outside the car to take pictures. Pictures? I don’t care! I’m cold! I’m not coming back in the morning! We returned to the inn, swearing a lot….

We refuel the car, return it to the inn, and check out. We were dropped off at a car rental store in Hanga Roa, where we rented our next car and will continue our tour of the island today.

Puna Pau

This is an inconspicuous place, but I think it is the hidden sights. This is where the pukao, the caps on the moai heads, were carved. Pukao as large as airplane engines are strewn here and there in random places. The pukao were made to resemble the hairstyles of the local people of the time. It is like a Japanese topknot.

There was a local girl sitting at the reception desk who signed our tickets. I think she was about 10 years old. I could feel that both adults and children love and cherish Rapa Nui.

The breeze blowing through the air is so comfortable that when I lay down, I thought, “Is this what heaven is like? In fact, I really felt like I was in heaven when I laid down and fell asleep.

Ahu Akivi

The moai give the impression of being by the sea, but these moai are located inland. Upon entering the site, there is a clockwise route around the moai, and you can go around in a circle while taking pictures and then EXIT.

Ana Te Pafu

The cave. We descended the not-so-steep stairs to the basement. There is a lot of rugged, steep lava rocks, and if you fall down, you will get hurt. The rocks are piled up like a wall, and I wondered why they were piled up like this. There was a tour group, so I followed them.

There was a mysterious space in the back, with a hole in the ceiling through which the sun was shining. The view of the vapor evaporated by the sunlight rising silently was breathtakingly beautiful.

Once on the ground, I brought some of the hotel’s breakfast pasty bread to snack on. It is dry and crumbly! Rapa Nui has a lot of wild horses and cows, so there are white bones falling here and there. This is nature.

Ahu Riata

We will return to Hanga Roa to meet the moai that we do not yet know.

Ahu Mata Ote Vaikava

While I was touching this moai, an islander shouted from afar, “No! 1 meter back away!” That’s right. You are not allowed to get closer than 1 meter to the moai. Of course, touching them is also prohibited. That’s what the guide booklet says. I apologize.

Sad moai that have been toppled

Touching the moai is prohibited, but if you touch them, you will feel gravel on your fingers. The moai are made of such soft rock. I think the reason why such fragile rocks have survived the years is because the local people have protected them. I was shocked when I first saw the sign that said, “Do not climb on the moai. Who would do such a thing? Well, it must have been the Chinese.

In the past, there were several villages in Rapa Nui, and at first they seemed to get along well with each other, but eventually the population grew and the trees were cut down to make way for grasslands. When they ran out of food, they began to fight each other and toppled each other’s moai.

Rapa Nui has a sad history not only of this, but also of slave ships coming and taking people away, and when they were freed and came back, they brought plague with them, and many people on the island were infected and died. And the most hateful of all is the British. They took the island’s most sacred white moai and soaked them in seawater when putting them on the ship, causing the white paint to peel off. The moai are in the British Museum in England, and I actually saw them on my second trip around the world. But the soul is in Rapa Nui!

The British are still overrunning the world, using the US as a pawn like a limb. They are really making the world a worse place by messing up Israel with their triple tongue, drawing borders on the African continent, and so on. This is the country where the Industrial Revolution was founded, so every cutting-edge technology in the world has to be approved by the UK before it can be put into business. It is a terrible story.

But I feel sorry for the overthrown moai…. Why didn’t they just pick them up?

Check in to the next inn

Our next accommodation is a cottage. We checked in, did laundry, ate, and took a nap. When we woke up and looked at the watch, it was 21:00. And yet it was this bright. I lost my sense of time.