The day began with the usual trip to
the airport to search for baggage. The
airport was open this time, but the baggage had not appeared. The desk clerk patiently described the steps
he had taken to have the baggage sent, but LAN in Lima did not seem to be
responding to his many messages. He
thought the bags might be on tomorrow’s flight from Lima, which is scheduled to
arrive at 5:20 p.m. But since our flight
is scheduled to leave at 6, he thought it best to request that LAN just keep
the bags in Lima for us. Since he cannot
even confirm that LAN has the bags (American Airlines doesn’t seem to be
responding to requests, either), we will have to hope that we can find them around
midnight in Lima tomorrow, or that they arrive in time here for us to pick them
up and re-check them to Lima. The lack
of high-speed (or even consistently available) Internet here makes it
impossible to communicate with home offices of either airline by Skype or chat.
So what to do in such a
situation? Roger had located on a map
the highest mountain on Easter Island, and since we had not climbed it, he
talked me into another great adventure. Somewhere
I had read that only those in peak (!) physical condition should attempt this
hike, and then only with a guide, but everyone knows to ignore such
warnings. Around 11:45 on a bright sunny
morning, we began the trek to the top, which we had been told would take two
hours. Now, Roger forgot to tell me to
bring the sunscreen we had bought at the local pharmacy at three times any sane
price, or water, so what follows is entirely his fault. It would have been nice to have the hat that
had been so carefully packed in my suitcase, but such small matters could not
deter such a challenge
as this.
It turned out to be a brutal hike up the volcanic mountain,
as we lost the path almost immediately and had to navigate high grass and ten
million rocks on the way to the top. Each
time we reached what we thought was the peak, there was another, higher one
several hundred yards ahead. But neither
of us wanted to be thought of as weaklings, so we forged ahead without a single
stop and finally made it to the top of the world in less than three hours.
OK, we did stop once to rest. Or maybe two times. Or was it six or seven times? Who was counting? Who was able to count by this
time? We made it.
At the top of Terevaka
volcano
By the time we reached the third or
fourth peak, our mouths were parched and our skins glowing red. But we were rewarded with an incredible view
of the entire island, and two kind ladies at the top offered us water and sympathy. (Note to Tricia and Elaine: we turned down the other offers.)
Sharing water with
newfound friends on the mountaintop
We soothed our aching feet and
blazing skin a couple of hours later (without the ladies, Tricia and Elaine!)
at a little shorefront restaurant that specialized in pisco sours, amaretto
sours, chardonnay sours, and Escudo beer.
Roger had shrimp and I had crab cakes.
As far as we can remember.
We did a bit more research into the
history of this island, continuing our quest for the truth. Turns out a Scotsman by the name of James
Grant Peterkin, a resident and guide on Rapa Nui since 2000, has published a
book called “A Companion to Easter Island”, subtitled “A concise Guide to the
History, Culture and Individual Archaeological Sites of Rapa Nui.” It contains quite a bit of information and
many color photos in its 166 pages, and cites many earlier sources. His qualifications for this history consist
of a study of Spanish linguistics at Cambridge (no degree cited) and a year
studying the linguistic traditions here, this being the only place in the world
where Spanish is spoken alongside Polynesian.
Peterkin says the people came here
from an island in Polynesia, where ancestor worship was common, sometime
between 600 and 900 A.D. Every time a
chief or important member of a tribe passed away, a statue was built and
transported back to his village, to overlook the village for eternity. These moai, he implies, may not have all been
standing when Admiral Roggeveen visited in 1722 (“the moan they saw were still standing”).
As the skills of the workers grew over time, so did the size of the
statues. The moai were pushed over as a
result of tribal rivalries and battles, and the construction of the statues
stopped. This was followed by a process
of selection of island leaders known as the birdman competition. Each year one of the dozen chiefs would
designate a representative to compete in a grueling competition. In September, when migratory sooty terns
came to nest on a couple of nearby rocky islets, the contestants would gather
in stone houses at the southwest end of the island. When the signal was given they would scale
the cliff down to the sea, swim the 3 km out to the nearest islet, and wait for
the first egg to be laid. The person who
retrieved the first egg would determine who would rule the island for the next
year—but he first had to swim back to the main island with the egg wrapped in a
pouch on his head. This practice was
ended by the Catholic missionaries in 1866, Peterkin says.
Stone houses for the
birdman competition
Islands where the
competitors awaited the first egg
The last conclusion seems inconsistent with the author’s
statement that Rapanui civilization came to an end in 1862 when Peruvians
captured and enslaved almost the entire population, removing them to the
mainland to work the farms. An 1877
census puts the population of the island at 111. And much of the information we have comes
from legend and oral tradition. The rest
is sheer speculation.
Tomorrow, we must make more sense of all this; it will be our
last day here.
Charlie and Roger
© 2013
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