Whatta Rapa Nui

I ended the last blog entry by saying that we (Machi, Alan, and I) were both leaving Chile and staying in Chile. Well, we left Chile by leaving Santiago and headed approximately 2300 miles across empty ocean to land on Easter Island, or to give it its native name, Rapa Nui.

But we stayed in Chile since Rapa Nui is part of Chile.

I also wrote in the last blog entry how nice it was not to worry about going into a restaurant. Well, it was also nice not to worry at all about boarding an airplane barefoot. And if it was going to be noticed and given short shrift, this would have been the time, for there were three barefooters boarding the plane together.

Alan and I had come into Chile on American Airlines, code-sharing with LAN (the major South American airline). We were a bit concerned then, but the flight to Rapa Nui was a real LAN flight, so we really knew we didn’t have anything to worry about. Somehow, I managed to get upgraded to Premium Business Class, where there is no possibility of hiding one’s feet beneath the seat in front. Didn’t matter at all—I still got premium service.

Flying Premium Business Class

Man, that was comfortable.

And it was a five-and-a-half-hour flight. The traveler in the seat next to mine wanted to know if a barefooters convention had boarded the plane.

Visiting Rapa Nui has been a life-long dream of Alan’s, and here it is being fulfilled.

Sole to Ground—Rapa Nui

Of course we also got a shot of the three of us on the tarmac before getting our luggage.

The Three Barefooteers

Rapa Nui is of course the place with all of the (more than 1,000) carved stone heads, moais, and they are pretty much everywhere. Later that afternoon Alan and I took a walk down in the village of Hanga Roa to the shoreline/beach there.

This shot just presented itself.

Three Moais

We flew in on Saturday; Sunday morning I met Machi (he was staying at a different lodging, a residencia), at the Father Sebastian Englert Catholic Church for mass. Father Sebastian was the Franciscan priest of the church for something like 33 years
(However, he did seem to be one of those Franciscans who always wore sandals instead of going barefoot—and if there is any place designed to make it really easy to go barefoot, it’s Rapa Nui.) Many of the designs on the walls are standard pictographs from around the Island.

The Church

It was quite interesting. The mass was in Spanish. However, familiarity with the English version help me follow along. The songs, though, were sung in Rapanui (the Polynesian language/dialect of Rapa Nui) by a Rapa Nui chorus. The celebrants were an interesting mixture of natives and visitors.

Here’s a picture of the inside of the church (they didn’t want picture-taking during the mass, but it was fine afterwards, and invited).

Inside the Church

Easter Island is also known for its exquisite wood carvings, and the church had such statuary, but of a religious nature.

When the Catholic Church moved into an area to convert new peoples, they were very good at adopting the previous beliefs into the worship. You can see that in the statues.

Religious Icon

Standard Catholic iconography, but with a Rapanui flavor.

They even adapted something from the Birdman cult. More on that later, but basically it was a newer (pre-discovery sixteenth century) cult and celebration of the return of the sooty tern to offshore island-rocks in the spring, accompanied by feats of daring.

This wooden statue was also in the church.

Birdman Jesus

The rest of the day was for starting to explore the Island.

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