Moai Tour
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These are some of the quarries where the moai were hewn from the rock. They were then displayed and those who wanted a particular one would have it moved to its location and sometimes seated on a pedestal (ahu). Being mostly buried, for a long time, people thought they were only heads, but excavations revealed more, as you will see. |
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The largest of them had never been removed. If that had even been possible. Look at the right side of the one in the above image. It's huge, as is this one. I heard 21m long. |
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These large moai quarries were up the hill, and suddenly out of nowhere came this large group of kids, hard on my heels. |
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And dang it! If they didn't jump right in front of my camera as I was trying to image the last moai here. The nerve. :-) |
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What's so unusual about this moai? Look again. He has legs, is seated, and his head is tilted toward the sky. Way in the distance you can see the after-lunch target, but first, running already behind, I hustled up to the Rano Raraku Volcano. Me and tours. Over the years, I ended up pissing-off every tour guide, but two. I just get distracted and forget time. |
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The Rano Raraku caldera. The little things on the left rim are horses. |
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| The caldera seems small, but really isn't, once you venture into it. Most people didn't, and I was late for lunch already, but hey, what's a few extra minutes among friends, right? I saw these moai in the distance, obviously carved right here from the rock, and also noticed a ranger going to retrieve some large tarp that had blown in here from somewhere. So a fellow traveler, Valerie, and I went in, alone. You see her below with her red cap. |
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The area was actually barricaded, but the ranger had opened it to get in and retrieve the tarp, so we went in, too. He then walked back out with us and closed the barricade again. We got in far enough to take some close-up pics of these two moai made from the local stone and patterned differently than the rest. |
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By the time we got back to the open viewing areas, guess who made it here as well? This just has got to stop. |
3D