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| several of the 4000 horses on Easter Island |
The Rapa Nui, the Polynesians who came to Easter Island from
French Polynesia, found an island devoid of animals and food. Only birds lived here during certain seasons
of the year. The wind blows incessantly
and carries salt that destroys many plants (though Easter Island at the time of
their arrival was heavily wooded).
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| vegetables growing inside rock enclosure |
Using their ingenuity, the settlers built stone enclosures
for their plants to protect them from the salty winds so they could grow. Today’s Rapa Nui also use these enclosures
for fragile plants like tomatoes. They
built their elongated houses over wood frames, using the long grass that is
native to the island for thatch.
Still today, they get their drinking water from wells, as
did their forebears, who also dug holes in the lava to catch rainwater for
drinking and cooking.
Today, there are 7000 inhabitants, 4000 horses (seems to be
no effort to geld the males as of yet), at least that many cattle, all grazing
everywhere there is a nub of grass, even among the moai, uncounted chickens and no sheep or
goats. Dogs, mostly very gentle but left
to fend for themselves and some cats loll outside in the sun,
The dogs don’t seem to have succumbed to the mutt of origin look yet and
mostly love a pet or a word of kindness, very rare in their world. As a huge dog lover, it’s fortunate for me I
don’t live here because I’d have a swarm of mutts, many quite handsome,
surrounding me.
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| original Rapa Nui houses |
particularly
around the restaurants where they get scraps.
Now that there are 100,000 tourists who come annually, all
resources are scarce, especially water.
There is no sewer system, so homes have individual tanks that get pumped
periodically and dumped I don’t want to know where, or simple septic systems.
Supposedly the sewage gets treated before it’s
dumped into the ocean, but we drove virtually every mile of road and hiked a
number of trails and never saw a treatment plant.
Fortunately, the Chilean government limits
tourism now, but there is still an urgent need for water treatment and
management.
In fact, all the resources
are scarce, including the grass, so animals will need to be managed more
carefully also.
There are lots of baby
everythings, from chicks to colts to calves, but not so many human babies.
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| Anakena Beach |
Growing anything is difficult in the soil, salt and wind
conditions of Easter Island. There are
some farms in the center of the island growing vegetables and taro. Beef if obviously plentiful. But, except for a few months a year, even the
fish is imported from the mainland. The
island gets virtually everything it needs via the daily LATAM flight and
container ships that stop when they have something to deliver. We did see one small container ship offshore,
but there is not port, so everything has to be offloaded onto smaller vessels
that can dock at the virtually unprotected jetty. There is a pipeline for jet fuel, gasoline
and diesel, so tankers hook up with the pipeline and ship their products
ashore.
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| horses grazing amidst maoi at quarry |
There is one lone sand beach on Easter Island, Anakena, on
the north side.
We visited on Sunday
when it was packed with families swimming, picnicking and enjoying the
water.
Elsewhere, families sunbathe on
the black lava rocks and swim in the few protected pools.
But, the rocks are jagged and the pools are
small, so swimming is mostly limited to Anakena, under the watchful eye of a
row of moai high up on the beach.
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| maoi at Anakena Beach |
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