Sunday. As recommended by Lonely Planet, I got up early and started the day in church. The service was in Spanish and Rapa Nui. The gospels were mostly in Rapa Nui. Besides many tourists, there was a group of indigenous from Northern Chile wearing the particular costumes from their region. Remarkable was the outfit of the priest: He wore the feathered hair dress of a Rapa Nui clan chief.
Later I went to Akivi, the only Ahus inland that is reconstructed. It is advertised as the only ahu with mo’ais looking out to the sea. Oral tradition suggests that it the mo’ais represent 7 explorers sent out to the sea. As all other ahus it is however overlooking a village that remnants were found between the ahu platform and the shoreline.
From Ahu Akivi, I hiked back to Hanga Roa. On the way, I crawled through some lava tubes.
– Ana Te Pau: It entrance is in a crevice. Making my way through a long dark and muddy lava tube, I arrived in a cave with a collapsed roof. A tree grows through the opening
-Ana Te Pora: Relatively small tube with a stone bed in it. It did not found it that exciting.
–Ana Kakenga ( The cave of the 2 windows): The entrance does not look like anything, and I only found it by the advise of an English couple. After bending trough a tiny entrance and crouching through an expanding lava tube, it ends in 2 big openings in the cliff that are directly over a stoney shore. The view onto the rolling waves and their noise is spectacular.
On my way back to Hanga Roa, I passed by Ahu Kio and Ahu Tahai, where I snapped some more mo’ai fotos.
