Another very pleasant day is drifting to an end with the sound of crickets and the nearby sea and the music from the festival down the coast. Benjamin Franklin would approve neither of my industriousness nor frugality, but I have had a splendid time all the same.
I got up and had breakfast with Colby and Sarah and then took the ATV to the museum, which is at the other end of the town down roads which are sometimes signposted for the museum and sometimes not. But I found it OK. When you go in they give you a bound collection of printed sheets in English, as the signs on the walls and the explanations on the exhibits are all in Spanish, and you make your way slowly around the room.
I really should have gone there earlier in my visit to the island as it gives a good summary of the history, and answers something I have been wondering about since I got here – who knocked down all the statues? It turns out that the tribes on the island fought with each other for much of the 1700s and 1800s over resources like wood and water. They have a belief in a sort of magical or religious power that can be used to do things, and that power is centred in or magnified by the maoi, so they went around knocking down each other’s statues whenever they got the chance. Pity. But at least for once it wasn’t slaughtering Europeans who came and ruined everything in the name of God.
And in fact Peru stepped into the role of villain for today. Some of the originals of the wooden carvings with the lost script on them that I mentioned yesterday are in the museum (though oddly, some of the finest are replicas, and it does not mention where the originals are – any bets on the British Museum?). That language, it emerges, was active into the 1800s, known to a small collection of men on the island as it was a sacred knowledge. Then Peruvian ‘slavers’ arrived – I cannot think of a more unpleasant epithet – and took many of the men of working age away from the island to be slaves elsewhere. That included all the men who knew how to write and read the script, and so it died with them. All we know about it now is that each symbol reflects an idea rather than a sound, but we don’t know what the ideas are.
To restate, it then: just 200 years ago, a mere flicker in the history of our race, it was acceptable under the international ways of doing things for men of one country to go to a weaker country and take the people there by force and sell them into slavery. Those men of learning and intelligence and standing in their community on Rapa Nui were suddenly not even fully human in the eyes of the people around them, and had to work for no pay and were ‘owned’ by someone else. And that atrocity alone comes before we consider what means were used to coerce them and what type of work they had to do. It’s just boggling, to use that word again, that this is so recent in the history of our affairs as a people. What kind of men were these ‘slavers’ I wonder? I would like to know, but I don’t think I can bear to find out, no more than I can think of all the thousands of other places where acts like these were carried out.
The museum, then, was a thought-provoking success. I went to the other end of town and filled up the tank on the ATV, and then reluctantly left it back. Oddly they made a great ceremony of presenting me the receipt for my costs; maybe I will try submitting it to Google. The ATV looked a bit sad and forlorn sitting there as I walked away, but by tomorrow it will be happily roaring out the eastern loop once again and it will be some other tourist’s turn to stall it outside the rental shop.
I went to the internet café then and sent a few emails about accommodation and generally caught up on my correspondence with the learned men of the world. That took longer than expected so I had a late lunch one final time in my usual spot. I am now officially tired of tuna, cheese and mayonnaise. They always make a specific point of asking if I want mayonnaise, as if this was a subject of tremendous potential offence.
As I ate I read more of the Lonely Planet. Robinson Crusoe Island looks like the next place for me, though it will have to be a future trip. It’s as isolated and desolate as Easter Island, but without the statues attracting the tourists, and so it’s much closer to the Polynesian roots of its culture. I am also looking at a few things to do in Chile, and I hope some of them will work out. There is something to be said for planning in advance.
After lunch I came back to the hostel. As I had given up the ATV I had to walk, like some sort of a sucker. But I found that quite pleasant I have to admit, and I took loads of pictures on the way so I could narrate my path. When I got back here I spent a few hours organising the photos from Easter Island, and then it was time for dinner. So I went out again and picked a place I hadn’t been to.
On the menu was a traditional Polynesian dish of raw fish served with sweet potato, which I had dodged last night in favour of the steak. Tonight was my last chance to try it, and I can have steak any old time, so I gave it lash. In the event it was not quite what I was expecting. I thought there would be lots of potato and a little fish, but it was the other way around. And the fish was in large cubes and chunks, dowsed in salt and lime and a vinaigrette-type sauce, so it was hard to taste the fish itself. The entire dish was cold – I had thought the potato might be hot – and the texture of the fish was like the flesh of a large fruit, which is not one of my favourite things. I ate much of it, but not all of it, and I’m glad I tried it but won’t be trying it again immediately.
On the way back from dinner I sat and watched the surfers for a while. Their agility and balance are marvellous. The tide was coming in and the waves were strong, hitting the shore hard and spraying up where they were constricted by the rocks. On the walk home from there I ran into the first American guy from last night – the chap who didn’t stay long – and talked to him for the few minutes our routes coincided. His name is Vlad, and he has been to all the sites on Easter Island that I have, which is all of them bar the national parks, and he has four days left here and only one book. As we parted he wished me luck, and he said in that way Americans have sometimes of sounding like he really meant it. I wished him luck too, and I hope it sounded as sincere.
When I got back to the hostel there was a barbecue and much beer-drinking in full swing, and I joined in. As far as Colby and Sarah had worked out it was the son of the owner’s birthday. He’s in his 40s, I would estimate, and has long hair and very dark skin and was going around tonight with a crown of flowers in his hair. He has the quick, jerky movements of someone who doesn’t go long without what the British tabloids call a ‘hand-rolled cigarette’, and indeed soon he was off to do just that. I had a pleasant evening with them all, and then went off to write these notes.
Tomorrow I intend to have a last look around in the morning, then get a taxi to the airport around 12. So come to think of it I may end up with one last blasted tuna sandwich. I arrive in Santiago late, but I have already booked accommodation. I emailed a few places and only one got back – it’s more expensive than I would like but I booked in for two nights, and they are picking me up from the airport.
Easter Island has been wonderful . I didn’t have any specific hopes coming here and I have enjoyed it very much – the driving on the ATV, the statues, the skies, the sea so close, the mystery and newness of everything. I feel like we’ve had a good run, and it’s time for me to move on. I hope all will go well tomorrow, and by this time in the evening I will be in the hostel in Santiago de Chile. I first saw the name of the city on map when I was about ten years old, and I’ve planned to go there ever since.
