Caldera

When we went to Rano Raraku, the quarry from which the moai were taken and carved, there is also a volcanic caldera there. (Rano, after all, means “volcano” in Rapanui.)

The inside of the caldera was also quite interesting (and barefoot-friendly).

Let me start with a picture of that hawk again (or at least I suspect it’s the same).

Caracara

Machi identified the bird as a milvago chimango, or a Chimango Caracara.

Easter Island is a volcanic island, so of course it has a lot of calderas. The calderas as pretty old, with the last eruption happening around 100,000 years ago.

We saw how Rano Kau at Orongo was filled with water.

The Rano Kau Caldera

And then when we climbed Maunga Terevaka, I climbed down into the caldera there. Here’s a new picture of that, taken by Lucas.

The Maunga Terevaka Caldera

If you look carefully, you ought to be able to see me.

The caldera at Rano Raraku was also filled with water.

The Rano Raraku Caldera

You can see that it has the same sort of scalloped blow-out that Rano Kau has.

It is also pretty extensive.

More of the Caldera

(Unfortunately, I don’t have my photo-stitching software with me, or I’d show a wider picture.)

There is talk of starting another village in the area and tapping the caldera lake for drinking water. I don’t know if that’ll happen or not.

Here’s Machi down near the edge of the water.

Machi at the Edge

As you can see, the horses consider this a pretty idyllic spot. I tried to actually step in the water, but one of the rangers started yelling at me. I don’t know why—the water was pretty shallow there, and it’s not as if I was going to contaminate it, since the horses had already done a pretty good job on the shore there.

If you look carefully at the picture, you’ll see something else, too.

Look! Up Near the Rim!

Yes, there are moai inside the caldera, too. The layer of volcanic tuff is exposed on both the outside and inside of the crater, and they quarried and carved on both sides, too.

Here’s a somewhat better shot of a few of the moai.

It’s More Moai

And here I’ve isolated and expanded the moai.

Some Interior Moai

It is not clear if any of these moai made it out of the crater. The entrance is pretty narrow.

The Entrance/Exit

There was one moai sitting there in the entrance. It had fallen over (but again, how the heck did they get it up that high?), and was pretty much blocking the path (at least for something as large as a moai.

Here we are on our way out.

Exiting the Caldera

That’ll give you a fair guess of the size of things, and just how high up the crater entrance is.