LOST in South America: Thursday, March 16, 2006

Rafting in Pucon

Went rafting again - looked really sexy in our shorts!! Didnt get dragged in this time - Neal wasnt the to take me in with him!! :-p

Short Visit To The Hospital !!!

Carine - The flight from Santiago to Easter Island was cool, especailly when we flew all around easter Island that gave us a taste of the coming week !!!!

Although we didn't expect visiting the local rusty hospital. Roy got so sick, he couldn't keep any food in, that a day and half later we ended up in the hospital, Doesn't he look good and happy !!!! Rehydrated, he even wanted to go back there everyday for some of this magic potion!!!!!

Roy - I'm ok folks - had an intestinal infection and had to go on a diet of crackers and rice for 3 days - was really dehydrated, had to drink 4-5 liters of water and rehydration salts a day!!! The IV drip was fantastic - was totally revitalised after it!!!

Santiago, Chile

They have giant fruit!!

Some buildings!!

And a nice view of the city..............................thats about all!! Except for 5 million Chileans who for some reason put avacados in everything they eat, hot dogs,burger, sandwiches....ive eaven eaten avacado ice cream!!

What´s a Moai - A little History lesson!!

Moai are statues carved of compressed volcanic ash on Rapa Nui. The statues are all, carved in one piece. They may weigh more than 20 tons and be more than 20 feet tall. One unfinished sculpture has been found that would have been 69 feet tall and would have weighed about 270 tons. Less than about one-fifth of the statues that were moved to ceremonial sites and then erected once had red stone cylinders pukau placed on their heads. These "topknots," as they are often called, were carved in a single quarry known as Puna Pau. About 95% of the 887 moai known to date were carved out of compressed volcanic ash at Rano Raraku, where 394 moai still remain visible today. Recent GPS mapping in the interior will certainly add additional moai to that count. The quarries in Rano Raraku appear to have been abandoned abruptly, with many incomplete statues still in situ. However, the pattern of work is very complex and is still being studied. Practically all of the completed moai that were moved from Rano Raraku and erected upright on ceremonial platforms were subsequently toppled by native islanders in the period after construction ceased. Although usually identified as "heads" only, the moai are actually one piece figures with heads and truncated torsos.

Throughout Easter Island many toppled moai have been found untouched and face-down. This led to the discovery that the famous deep eye sockets of the moai were designed to hold coral eyes. Replica eyes have been constructed and placed in some statues for photographs, as can be seen in the Easter Island entry. The most widely-accepted theory is that the statues were carved by the Polynesian colonizers of the island beginning by about A.D. 1000-1100. In addition to representing deceased ancestors, the moai, once they were erect on ceremonial sites, may also have been regarded as the embodiment of powerful living chiefs. They were also important lineage status symbols. The moai were carved by a distinguished class of professional carvers who were comparable in status to high-ranking members of other Polynesian craft guilds. The statues must have been extremely expensive to craft; not only would the actual carving of each statue require effort and resources, but the finished product was then hauled to its final location and erected. It is not known exactly how the moai were moved but the process almost certainly required human energy, ropes, wooden sledges and/or rollers. Another theory is that the moai may have been "walked" by rocking them forward. (Pavel Pavel and his succesful experiment (1986) showed that only 17 people with ropes are needed for relative fast transportation of the statues).

By the mid-1800s, all the moai outside of Rano Raraku and many within the quarry itself had been knocked over. Today, about 50 moai have been re-erected on their ceremonial sites. Ancient island legends speak of a clan chief called Hotu Matu'a, who left his original home in search of a new one. The place he chose is now known to us as Easter Island. When he died, the island was divided between his six sons and then, later, sub-divided among their descendants. The islanders may have believed that their statues would capture the chiefs' "mana" (supernatural powers). They may have believed that by concentrating mana on the island good things would result, rain would fall and crops would grow. The settlement legend is a fragment of what was surely a much more complicated and many-faceted, mythic sketch, and it has changed over time.

* Carine copied and pasted all this - she was too lazy to explain the whole thing!!

Orongo Volcano, Easter Island

These are pictures of Orongo Volcano on Easter Island, the volcano itself has been extinct for thousands of years, all that lies there now are a series of lakes - its quite picturesque!

The volcano lies on the southwest of the island looking out on to the Pacific ocean!!

Easter Island - Legend of the Rapa Nui Moai

Back again, was away on Easter island for a while!! The lonliest place on the planet!! And before i go any further it not the land of Easter Eggs and home of the Easter bunny!

We flew out from Santiago last Wednesday hoping to arrive and be greeted with the traditional necklaces the same as everybodyelse on the flight!! Unfortunately as we were staying in a hostel we got nothing, zilch, nada, not a friggin´ bean!! Everybodyelse was greeted by host family who greeted them with exotic smiles, a warm embrace and a beautiful flower necklace - just like on Fantasy Island - you know the show with the little small guy!!

Anywho, our hostel turned out to be quite nice, the room was clean, spacious and surrounded by animals!! The hostel was practically a farm the were roosters all over the place as well as dogs, cats and giant cockroaches - but its ok they were all quite plesant to us!!

Unfortunatley, i was sick for the first few days with a intestine infection - nothing was staying in my body - was horrible, thankfully i had my own private nurse on hand!! ;-)

The island is basically famous for the giant Moai statues carved from the mountain thousand of years ago mainly to please the gods but also to look over the villages to protect them from evil spirits!! The statues are quite impressive and there were over 900 scattered all around the island and historians are still baffled as to how the giant Moai carved from the mountain were moved from one side of the island to the other considering the weighed up to 100 tonnes!!!!
Easter Islands history is pretty sketchy as no one really knows what happened as the never wrote stuff down!
Basically all that happened on Easter Island thousand of years ago was statue carving!!
Islanders carved statues all day for the Gods because the Bird Man (head chief of the Island) ! he gont this position by winning a competition of climbing dow a rocky cliff swimming across a pretty treachorous channel of shark infested waters and climing a large rock where the Sotty Tern bird lays its eggs!!!

Anywho, people got tired of living on scraps of crop and rebelled against the gods and knocked down most of the statues they had spent all thier lives building!!