Ahu Tongariki
Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
September 18, 2016
© Rick Kollmeyer
You may have seen on my About page that when we travel, we don’t like to “follow the flag.” And often, being under-scheduled is what gives us the time to linger after the tours have departed.
In 2016, because it sounded like an amazing idea, we decided to take seven weeks to circumnavigate the globe.
It was an incredible trip. Seven weeks compressed so many climates, cultures and archaeological sites into a single journey. It sometimes felt like we were living inside a National Geographic magazine from both of our childhoods.
Thank goodness Deborah, with her years in the airline industry, was a wizard at finding and booking flights to the many fascinating places we discussed. More so, that it was all logistically possible.
One of those places was Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island or Isla de Pascua. I had been fascinated by the island since I was a kid and hardly believed it could be as real as the amazing images showed.
Rapa Nui is roughly halfway between the coast of Chile and French Polynesia. It is an extraordinarily isolated place, sitting pretty much alone in that part of the Pacific. You get a strange feeling that you truly are in the middle of nowhere.
If you needed help, you weren’t going to get it very quickly.
The services on the island are about what you would expect: a few basic restaurants, simple lodging, friendly people and incredible archiological sites. We rented a dilapidated vehicle from the owner of the motel where we were staying. It was barely drivable, but you don’t really have to go very far on Rapa Nui.
My plan was to photograph Ahu Tongariki at sunrise, so we headed out in the dark the next morning.
As we arrived, there was a small tour bus and a number of other cars arriving as well. Everyone had roughly the same idea. The tour groups went to the spots their guides had chosen and waited for the sun to come up.
I wandered around and scoped out a few potential locations of my own. As the sun rose, I captured some nice images.
Then, moments after the sun came up, the shutters clicked and the selfies were taken, everyone left.
We were completely alone.
We walked down to the water and spent some time watching the waves in areas where people generally didn’t go. On the way back, we passed several places where someone at some unknown time had been working obsidian, perhaps shaping it into blades or other tools. I had no idea how old the pieces were, so I left them exactly where they were.
We also stopped to look at some wild horses in the area before heading back toward Ahu Tongariki. I wanted to take a few more photographs as the sun rose higher but with the monument in shadow.
Behind the moai was Rano Raraku, our next destination. The volcanic mountain is visible in this photograph. It was a sacred place and the source of the stone from which the moai were carved before being transported to other parts of the island. The moai are gazing towards it.
As we stood there admiring Ahu Tongariki one last time, a small dark cloud passed overhead and a brief shower began.
Because the sun was behind us and still relatively low in the sky, a small rainbow appeared.
I started running toward the monument, trying to get close enough to use a wide-angle lens to include the entire scene.
The rainbow lasted only a few more moments.
Long enough.
Moments like this are what I love about traveling this way. If we had been following a schedule, we probably would have been in a van and halfway to the next destination.
Instead, we were standing alone on an island in the middle of the Pacific, watching a rainbow appear like a dream over some of the most remarkable structures I had ever seen.
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