Rano Kau Volcano
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A young waiter from Taiwan who someday hopes to have his own restaurant. He lived at the same guesthouse but all but on this last day, had a scooter and was all over the island. This being my last day here, with a midnight departure, I decided to go up this volcano and see the bird people's houses. He had already been up here with the scooter, but wanted to do it on foot. |
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About a half an hour's walk from town, past the bottom of the former Space Shuttle runway, there is the entrance to the park. Pretty benign down here, but then it gets much steeper and we were blowing past people panting and stopping. Then came this German girl jogging up the path. She says she does this every day and lives here on the island. . |
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The only time I used my special wide-angle lens on this trip. This is the caldera (crater lake) of the Rano Kau volcano. |
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Walking on, around almost half of the rim, one gets to a modern museum and entrance building. Outside they have what seem to be newly made rocks carved with designs of the bird cult, the Orongo people, who used to live here. |
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Inside there are artifacts and posters that describe the bird people's ritural. You can read that here.. |
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The distance is not that long (1400 m), although it was a race. First one had to climb down the outside of the volcano. I asked about currents, and the young native curator said, strong and in direction town. So when they returned, the usually ended up where Hanga Roa is and then had to race back to the top (carrying the eggs) and the first one would be greatly honored and got the girl of his choice given as a bride. Sounds like a grueling race, all in all. The furthest, largest of these islands is Moto Nui and you can read the details above. |
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| The swimmers, racers, climbed down this wall to sea level and then used reed mats as floatation devices. | On the next page some of the houses and carvings. |
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3D