Rapa Nui big heads

Easter Island is an enigma, somewhat of a mystery to historians and archeologists alike.  The experts think it was populated for around 5-8 hundred years before it was rediscovered in the 1700's.  By then the civilisation who had sailed almost 4000 k's in little canoe's from Tahiti to populate the island had all but disappeared leaving only the huge stone Maoi as testament to what had been.  But even the Maoi had all been toppled over, all but destroyed.

Now some of the Maoi have been restored to their original glory, others, all over the island, lay scattered over the cliff sides where they once stood watch over the people.  The big heads are huge, and like ancient pyramids all over the world, Stonehenge and  Machu Picchu you look at these big heads and think ,'How the hell did they do that?'

Where's Wally.

Remember the oracles?

Michael says 'pfft, my head's bigger than this.'

Looking at the giant stone faces with their blank stares, it kind of reminded me of the oracles in The Never Ending Stories.  I kept expecting them to talk to me or start crumbling at I stood there watching them.

The island itself is not so big.  It took us about half an hour to drive end to end.  On the first day we thought hiring scooters would be fun.  It was fun until we hit the first of many long gravel tracks, all rugged and bumpy.  I was wishing big time for a sports bra.  Lucky I don't have big boobies or I would have ended up with black eyes.  So the next couple of days we hired a little 4wd to get around.

As well as the big heads there was Orongo which is restored houses that sit on the edge of a huge crater.  There were some nice beaches and lots of caves sprinkled along the coast.  We crawled into one where the opening was only about a metre square and crawled and walked through about 100 metres to come out in the side of the cliff overlooking the water smashing onto the rocks.  Pretty cool.  I was all like, 'Hey check this out.  Be careful it's slippery.'  Great advice that I was giving and not actually doing because two steps later I was flat on my arse.