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April 28, we arrive at Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui or Easter Island at 1pm. The weather is gloomy and much cooler. The ship has a Sunday brunch in the Grand Dining Room, with all sorts of goodies and a string quartet in the background. Tenders are offered to go ashore starting at about 3pm, but cannot run in the dark because the entrance to the only harbor is very tricky as the boats shoot through the rocks. It is a rough 15-20 minute tender ride and then 1 1/4 miles to the only town, Hanga Roa, so we all decide not to go ashore. We will be spending the next 2 days there and feel that is probably enough. The Hansons and Donnas come to our cabin for drinks and then we all head to Red Ginger for dinner at 6:30. This is not their favorite restaurant and they have only been once during the 3-4 cruises on either Marina or Riviera. They figure that we can help them find dishes that are not too spicy for their Mid-West appetites. We all had a good time and with Berli and Lin's assistance everyone had tempura vegetables, Thai beef salad, sea bass, and a variety of other options.

April 29 is our first real day on Easter Island. Peg Hanson had discovered a local tour company and we all signed up for 2 full day tours with them, Green Island Tours. We later discovered that many people had found Green Island through TripAdvisor. It is a very long tender process at Hanga Roa as only one tender at a time can enter the port through a narrow, rocky channel, so any other tenders have to wait their turn out on the heavy sea. We got town to the Marina Lounge before 8:15am as our tour was to start at 9:30am and we needed to check in with Green Island. We had been informed that the larger bus the Hansons and Donnas were on was booked so we were set for a smaller van/bus. We all got on the same tender and finally got into port at 9:15 and found that Green Island was pretty disorganized. We found our van and the others their bus. At this point, Marc Shields (the owner of Green Island) told us that he was short a van driver so he tried to fit 10-12 in our van. Rob was not interested in that, so we offered to get out if we could go on the bus with our friends. He said okay and he would refund us the difference, so we ended up where we had wanted to be in the first place. However, we waited almost an hour before leaving as some of the reservations didn't show up and they kept waiting for more tenders to arrive in case. In addition, one of the vans did not have an English speaking guide/driver, so our guide, Pedro, gave commentary over a connection to the van as well as to us.

However, Pedro was great! He is from Chile, has a degree in marine biology and came to Easter Island 4 years ago to open a micro-brewery. After 3 years he got tired of being cooped up inside and became a tour guide. His wife also works for the company. Because we started the tour (scheduled for 9:30-4:30 both days) late, Pedro chose to do it in reverse, which worked really well as we were not at the same spot at the same time as all the other Green Island buses or the other tour buses from Oceania. Our first stop was at the only sandy beach on Easter Island, Akhena, where for $1 we could use a bathroom where a lady flushed the toilet after you with a bucket of water. We had almost mutinied on the bus as we had not been near a bathroom since leaving the ship and remember, we were a bunch of old folks. At this first stop, we learned Pedro's favorite word (and one that we will never forget) "plataforma". At Akhena, we saw our first Moai, a group of 5 on a plataforma. During the time of the early natives, the RapaNui, families constructed these plataformas and placed huge stone figures, mostly a head but actually a figure from the waist up, and in varying styles. These Moai are what draw people to Easter Island.

From Akhena, we took the only paved road on the island through the town of Hanga Roa. Easter Island's population is about 6,000 with 90+% living in town, and the rest on farms in a few agricultural areas. The rest of the island is a Chile National Park. Land ownership is restricted to the native Rapa Nui only, although there has been some recent selling to others. After leaving the town, we took some terrible dirt roads around the western and northwestern coast and saw a variety of small buildings made of layered stones; some were chicken houses to keep the hawks away and some were sleeping quarters for people and some were circular towers. We curved around the northern end of the island, although we cannot get close to the coast as the peninsula is not open to the public. The story is that there were two groups of Rapa Nui, the "architects" or more powerful and the "workers", the common people. At one point the architects built a large trench to keep the workers away and then the workers set the trench on fire and burned the architects out. No evidence has been found to prove this story true. Our target was Tongariki, where there are 15 Moai on a gigantic plataforma. During the whole drive there, Pedro told us about the "oral traditions" and mythology of the Rapa Nui people. At Tongariki, we discussed how the plataforma was the actual grave of the family members and how some of the Moai had Puka'o which are hats or more probably topknots of hair made of a red rock. The Rapa Nui often painted themselves or their hair with red clay so the Puka'o were quarried from a different stone than the Moai to show the red. There were also some hieroglyphics and a display of Puka'o which had not been raised onto the Moai.

Our next stop was the quarry from which the Moai were carved. As we arrived at this location in the Park, it started to rain and poured for a while. Once it let up we started our hike around the quarry, a mostly uphill walk. Moai were carved flat in the sides of the hills made of black basalt. The workmen carved the whole body laying down, with ears, eyes, arms along its sides. Then when they were done, they carved under its back from both sides and somehow stood it up. There are lots of theories about how they raised these statues to a standing position, placed them in a hole like a posthole to finish around the back and then, somehow, moved them to various locations on the island. The largest Moai started is 20 meters/about 60 feet tall and is still laying on its back in the side of the hill. Some are still partway down the hill, some have fallen and some were moved miles away. The most prevalent current theory is that they placed large poles on either side and "walked" them back and forth and forward. However they did it, they had no wheels and no animals to help. So even if they placed them on a bed of poles and then rolled them, which is a less popular theory now as it is believed that would have caused a lot of damage to the carvings and that is not evident, this process required large numbers, as in the thousands, of workers. These workers were put up in a camp near the quarry and paid in foodstuffs as there was no other currency. The were drawn from all the tribes and villages, so while they were carving their families had no fisherman or farmers to feed them. The workers stayed at the quarry for a period of time and then went home with their pay, fished, farmed for a week or so, and then went back to the quarry. We spent a long time at the quarry as there were also hieroglyphics to see and oral traditions to hear.

Our last stop of the day was at an early village site where we could see the foundation stones of the sleeping buildings, the caves for the tribal kings to go to for safety in case of attacks or weather, the umai or communal cooking pits. The Rapa Nui had not seen people from other parts of Polynesia and had no cattle or dogs. The food was mainly tubers, with some occasional fowl.

This had been a long day, with 2 rest stops and no food stop. It was a difficult day for Cheri and Gene with so much walking and climbing. We headed back to the ship ready for some down time. Rob and Daryl had our second dinner at La Reserve on this night from 7-10pm. This was the "super" menu, which we had not previously tasted. Vedran, the sommelier from Croatia who we knew from other cruises, sat us with a couple who we had been calling the "beautiful people" when we saw them around the ship. They turned out to be as interesting as they were attractive. They are doing a trip around the world without taking any flights. They have their own businesses, office supplies and oil trading, and are currently living in the Cayman Islands but soon moving to Switzerland (note: both banking havens.) He is German by birth but has lived in Dubai as well. She is American, was a model, was in the Air Force for 8 years, etc. As you can imagine, the dinner conversation was not dull and neither was the fantastic food. We might have to try this menu again next year. We fell into bed exhausted, knowing we had another big day ahead.