Tuesday, January 21st—Our 18th Cruise Day—Easter Island, Chile

Tuesday, January 21^st—Our 18^th Cruise Day—Easter Island, Chile

After leaving Callao, Peru, at about noon on Thursday, January 16^th, we had four full sea days cruising southwest and reached Easter Island, Chile, at about 8:00 AM on Tuesday, January 21^st. We had just one day on Easter Island, and we wanted to make the most of it!

Easter Island is roughly triangular shaped—more specifically a right triangle with the hypotenuse running southwest to northeast. It was formed over a “hot spot” on the Nazca Tectonic Plate, which produced three volcanos. Eruptions from those volcanos filled the spaces in between producing a single island. The island was first discovered by Europeans in 1722; on Easter Sunday, Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutch explorer, discovered it and named it “Easter Island.” (Obviously, the island had been discovered and settled by Polynesians hundreds of years earlier.) The island received no visitors for the next 50 years after that. Today, Easter Island is administered by Chile. The native name for the island—“Rapa Nui”—is a common alternative name.

Of course, this was our second visit to Easter Island. During our 2012 cruise we stopped at Easter Island with our ship anchoring at the northern end of the island at Anakena Beach—by far the most beautiful beach on the island.

Easter Island is a tender port—meaning that after our ship has anchored, tenders—which double as lifeboats—will ferry passengers ashore. Tendering at Easter Island is always tricky since the island has no protected harbor, and is subject to large swells that roll in from great distances—our Captain Jonathan Mercer refers to Easter Island as his “nemesis.”  So although a cruise ship may have Easter Island on their itinerary, everyone holds their breath as we approach, hoping that passengers will be able to go ashore—and sometimes—to everyone’s great disappointment—that is not possible.

The first choice for anchorage and tendering is always on the southwest side of the island at a port called “Hanga Pico” near the town of Hanga Roa—where almost all of the island population lives. Due to large swells from the southwest, this was not possible in 2012, and so we anchored off Anakena Beach. But we were hopeful for this trip, and indeed when we awoke the morning of January 21^st, we found the ship off Hanga Roa with relatively calm seas. 

There are many highlights on Easter Island, many of which we saw during our 2012 trip: Orongo with its “birdman” culture, the town of Hanga Roa, and the 15 Moai statues of Ahu Tongariki. (“Moai” are the large shone “heads” for which Easter Island is famous, and an “Ahu” is a platform on which the Moai stand.) But one of the things we missed on the last trip and really wanted to see on this trip was Ahu Tahai (famous as having the only Moai with its eyes re-inserted) and the quarry of Rano Raraku (with dozens of Moai in various stages of completion littering the hillside—including the largest Moai ever carved, weighing in excess of 250 tons.)

So we arranged for a shore excursion through Holland America that would take us to those two sites. It was very tempting to not arrange for an excursion and just wing it ourselves using a taxi or perhaps a rental car. But we weren’t sure what the availability of taxis would be on shore and decided to play it safe and go for an organized excursion.

Our ship arrived at Easter Island at 8:00 AM, and almost immediately began tendering passengers ashore. However, our planned excursion didn’t begin until 12:30 PM, so we decided to take an early tender ashore and see what we could do on our own before our tour started, and then just meet our tour at the tender pier.

We were on shore by 9:00 AM, and decided to walk from the tender pier into the town of Hanga Roa—a distance of about a mile and a half. On the way, we passed the Naval Station administered by the country of Chile, a few “bed and breakfast“ type lodgings, and one large hotel that had an “environmentally friendly” policy.

Once in town, we shopped for souvenirs at the town market, walked to the tiny post office—which didn’t sell Easter Island stamps, only postal stickers which we had to purchase using Chilean pesos—and ended up at a small restaurant on Avenue Atamu Tekena—aka “Main Street.”

The restaurant was wonderful! We had sandwiches and beer which was a perfect antidote to a long walk and sore feet. We met a couple of others from our ship there and after we finished, the restaurant owner arranged a taxi for us with an English speaking driver.

The taxi first took us to the Easter Island Museum which held a fascinating collection of the few Easter Island artifacts still in existence—including the only authentic, original eyes from a giant Moai. (The eyes in the Moai of Ahu Tahai are modern reproductions.)

After the museum, our driver took us to Ahu Tahai—a drive of about 15 minutes—where we viewed and had our photos taken with the Moai. Following this it was about 12:15 PM, so we had our taxi driver take us back to the tender port so that we could catch our excursion tour.

The tour involved riding in a mini-van to four different sites—the first being Ahu Tahai! So we were back at Ahu Tahai less than an hour after we left it! After that, we traveled to the quarry at Rano Raraku at the eastern end of the island and on the western slope of the volcano Puakatike.

The quarry is amazing! After leaving the van, we walked along a path that took us by dozens of Moai “heads “at odd angles. (When Thor Heyerdahl visited the island in 1947, he removed the earth around one of these heads, demonstrating that they were in fact, complete Moai that were partly buried.) Bill was a bit adventurous, and climbed a steep path up to where the largest Moai ever carved was still enclosed in rock, having never been moved. Towards the end of our tour of the quarry, it started to rain—which threw many visitors into a tizzy. But we were from Seattle—rain doesn’t faze us, and in fact was a welcome relief from the heat and humidity! At the end of our tour of the quarry we had a magnificent view of the Moai at Ahu Tongariki in the distance—which was to be the next stop on our tour.

We made our way down the path from the quarry to our van, and had a 10 minute drive to reach the magnificent Moai at Ahu Tongariki. Although Moai on the island were carved out of rock over a period of centuries, by 1840, all of them had been toppled over by the islanders for reasons that are not certain. So all of the standing Moai on the island have been re-erected in modern times. In the case of Ahu Tongaiki, the Moai were re-erected only to be toppled again by a massive tsunami in 1960, which caused considerable damage.  Fortunately a photo of the structure was available and the Japanese government restored them based on the photo. Ahu Tongariki consists of 15 Moai on top of an ahu with their backs to the sea. The surroundings are like a park and include a large “fallen” Moai—which was never actually erected on the ahu—and several petroglyphs (stone carvings) of turtles. If there was just one site a person must see while on Easter Island, it would be Ahu Tongariki. The faces of the silent stone heads facing inland with the sea to their backs is a haunting and inspiring experience.

After Ahu Tongariki, we continued our drive counter clockwise around the island to Anakena beach. Of course this is the beach where our tenders landed on our 2012 cruise, so we knew it quite well—Bill even went swimming at the beach in 2012. And although this beach is described as “the only good beach on the island”, it is truly one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen—sandy and reasonably protected from currents, with shallow waters for swimming. And it doesn’t hurt to have Ahu Nau Nau containing 7 Moai plus a single Moai as a background! Our guide took us on a short walk up to and around the Moai, but by that time it was nearly 4:30 PM—the deadline for the last tender—so we soon departed Anakena Beach for our tender pier to make the return trip to our ship.

We actually arrived at our tender port after 4:30 PM, but fortunately the very last tender was waiting for us and we made it back to the ship safely. And then it was time for drinks and appetizers at the sail-away party on the Lido Deck!

We departed Easter Island about 5:30 PM, and headed west. After two full sea days, we would arrive at Pitcairn Island on Friday, January 24^th. And although passengers were unable to go ashore on Pitcairn Island, we discovered that Pitcairn Island came to our ship! More on that later.