Showing 1-9 of 9 results
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Ahu Tahai
A perfect introduction to the island's more remote sites, the beguiling Ahu Tahai is a highly photogenic site that contains three restored ahu (ceremonial platforms). Ahu Tahai proper is the one in the middle, supporting a large, solitary moai (statue) with no topknot. On the northern side is Ahu Ko Te Riku, with a topknotted and eyeballed moai .
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Ahu Tautira
If you've just arrived and can't wait for your first encounter with the moai (statues), head straight to Ahu Tautira. This site overlooks Caleta Hanga Roa, the fishing port in Hanga Roa at the foot of Av Te Pito o Te Henua. Here you'll find a single ahu (ceremonial platform) with two superb moai.
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Ahu Tongariki
Dazzling in scale and setting, you'll be awestruck the minute this monumental ahu (ceremonial platform) comes into view. Between 1992 and 1995, the Japanese company Tadano re-erected 15 moai (statues) at this site - a 1960 tsunami, produced by an earthquake between Rapa Nui and the South American mainland, had flattened the statues and scattered several topknots far inland. Only one topknot has been returned to its place atop a moai .
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Iglesia Hanga Roa
The unmissable Iglesia Hanga Roa, the island's Catholic church, is well worth a visit for its spectacular wood carvings which integrate Christian doctrine with Rapanui tradition. It also makes a colorful scene on Sunday mornings, bursting at the seams with a devout congregation neatly dressed and belting out rousing himene (hymns).
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Museo Antropológico Sebastián Englert
This well-organized anthropological museum makes for a perfect introduction to Easter Island's history and culture. It displays replica Rongo-Rongo tablets, basalt fishhooks, obsidian spearheads, a moai head with reconstructed eye fragments, sketches of elliptical houses, circular beehive-shaped huts and the ceremonial houses at Orongo.
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Orongo Ceremonial Village
Perched high on the edge of the Rano Kau crater wall and abutting a vertical drop plunging down to the cobalt-blue ocean, Orongo ceremonial village boasts one of the world's most dramatic landscapes. This fragile outcrop is where bird-cult rituals were performed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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Parque Nacional Rapa Nui
Since 1935, most of Rapa Nui's land and all of its archaeological sites have been a national park administered by Conaf. The park teems with caves, ahu (ceremonial platforms), fallen moai (statues), village structures and petroglyphs. Spending the extra cash on a guided tour, or on an islander who can explain what you are seeing, is a very worthy investment.
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Rano Kau
The star natural attraction of Rapa Nui is the stunning crater lake Rano Kau. You'll be awestruck when you first see it, covered in a bog of floating totora reeds and appearing for all the world like a giant witch's cauldron.
It's possible to hike around the crater, but it's slow going - allow a full day, and take plenty to drink as the lake water is muddy and brackish. Perched 400m (1320ft) above the lake is the Orongo Ceremonial Village.
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Rano Raraku
Known as 'the nursery', the Rano Raraku volcano is the quarry for the hard tuff (compacted volcanic ash) from which the moai (statues) were cut. The poignancy and eeriness is palpable as you wander among moai in all stages of progress, studded on the southern slopes of the volcano. Most are upright, but buried up to their shoulders or necks in the earth, so that only their heads gaze across the grassy slopes.
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Showing 1-9 of 9 results
