Our eco-lodge has a pleasant garden, the view from the front veranda all blue and verdant green. We took a meandering stroll down to Ahu Ko Te Riku, a stand-alone moai set atop a broad platform of neatly aligned volcanic rock. A wedding party was having photos taken, the entire group in white but for a trio of men looking fierce in traditional costume. It was a beautiful evening, the breeze keeping the mosquitoes away, but oddly we were the only ones dining out on the terrace of Te Moai Sunset. Before us, the sea and the sky performed a call-and-response routine with color, and when it was nearly done, we enjoyed the encore afoot, moving across stone along the way home...
...the stars that followed surpassed even the greatest work of the setting sun. The nighttime canvas had a depth of field beyond anything I'd ever experienced, and I have spent years in the desert of rural New Mexico. And the forms they took were strange and unique to me, the Southern hemisphere of course having a repertoire all its own...
...temporal space too had a fathomless depth, as it often does on remote islands. I noted that people made more eye contact while speaking, even if walking side by side. In most places people will look straight ahead during a walk-and-talk, but here, the eyes sought a reconfirmation of connection, probably in a way that the eyes of a sailor at sea will ever seek out the assurance of dry land...
...the dug-out huts of Orongo, lined against the sheer cliffs that drop away toward a trio of rock spires. Men used to repel down these cliff and swim out to the islands, in order to snare tern eggs and bring them back to the clan. This served a political as well as religious need, and determined the hierarchy for the coming year. The first thing the newcomer Christians did was to ban the ceremony, which led to a rapid and profound cultural demise. The huts front the broad volcanic crater, its hollow center black and filled with reeds...
...there is another volcano, Rano Raraku, it sides dug away to the extent that the mountain is now saddle-shaped. We go sit awhile inside the dormant crater, in the shade of a single tree. Under the gaze of a dozens unfinished moai on the opposite ridge, the talk turns to the spiritual, an obvious interest for our guide Nathalie, who runs our eco-lodge. The talk grows broader, and I am surprised that she has also read Brian Weiss's classic book. We move around to the other side of the volcano, where more unfinished moai simply litter the hillside, standing or tilting at various angles. It is a photographer's dream. The eye begins to make out the embryonic moai, blocks of unfinished statues still affixed to the volcanic stone that birthed them. Once the eye makes the adjustment, they are simply everywhere...
...Nathalie apparently likes our company, and takes us through a variety of caves at the center of the island. You can find them easily since that is where the trees are, absorbing water from beneath the island's rocky surface. The vegetation they contain is varied and lush, like a salad bowl. One broad cave is a banana grove, and a massive beehive clings to the rock beside. We follow the interconnected lava tubes awhile, and pop out through a narrow hole the size of a small window. It is incredible how far our subterranean journey took us...
...the inland array of moai at Ahu Akivi, set against the jungle and looking like the set of a Vietnam war film...
...climbing yet another volcano, Puna Pao, where the 'stone hats' are quarried. The rolling grassy sides are like England's South Downs...
... during yesterday's lunch at Anakena I couldn't tear my eyes from the waves. I return to body surf them, getting a taste of why this island is considered one of the world's top surf spots. The water is clear, the seafloor a gradual slope of soft sand. I bob awhile, my eyes never leaving the moai lined up just off the beach, then catch numerous waves, repeatedly and violently dropped into their troughs. When I leave the water I notice that my earring has been ripped out. My fingers immediately check for my wedding ring. We drive down a bad road to the neighboring Ovahe, famed for its sandy cove. I look at it from the rocks above then turn back, satisfied with my earlier swim.
...the towering Ahu Te Puta Kura, face down and forlorn on a lonely stretch of shoreline. I find the navel of the world at the water's edge, and wonder who gets to sit upon the four smooth stones within...
...Tongariki, the island's showcase, seen in a thousand photos. The fifteen moai were knocked well inland in a 1960 tsunami, to be put back in place by Japanese money. Today they are framed perfectly by the hard curve of the rocky shoreline behind...
...Ahu Vaihu, where eight moai lie faced own upon the black rock, as the waves crash below and the wind tears at their broad backs...
...a pair of dinners taken at the water's edge. The service is slow but the surfers entertain...
...awaken the final morning to see the boat we left in Valparaiso is now moored off shore. We've had four days of perfect weather, the same amount of days they were at sea, and they'll have four more on the way to Tahiti. Their only shore day this week will be spent in rain. I scan the town for familiar faces as we pass through on the way to the plane. What follows is a three-quarter circumnavigation of the earth, via Santiago, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, then Osaka. Five, two, thirteen and ten hours aloft, covering 13,000 kilometers. It is days before my body knows what time it is...
On the turntable: Joanna Newsom, "The Milk-Eyed Mender"
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