A Heady Experience

Inside the crater of that extinct volcano, and along its slopes, are hundreds of statues in all stages of creation, each with a somber face, stylized ears and hands held to its sides. No photograph can capture the scale of it, although every visitor had to try. Some statues still lie on their backs, part of the rock. Others were abandoned as they were being moved down the hill. This procession of stone heads explains why, in Rapa Nui legend, the moai walked from their birthplaces to their ahus , or platforms.

However, inescapably, real life overtook legend. On Rano Raraku, the moai stopped walking. The details are cloudy, but it's easy to speculate. There came a time when the islanders could no longer support the artisans. In the aftermath of ecological disaster, in a world with no trees and little food, who needed more statues?

If Rano Raraku stuns with its otherworldly beauty and its sobering message, Ahu Tongariki tells another story.

The 15 moai of Ahu Tongariki stand at Easter Island's edge, their weather-beaten gray backs turned to the sea. They keep watch on an empty, wind-swept plain beneath an endless sky.

With so many of the old ancestors lined up on one platform, it's easy to see that they are all different. Stylized, yes, but different. There's one with a pot belly. There's one with an upturned nose, another with a long chin. Some of the looniest Easter Island theorists say space aliens made the statues. But here, it's obvious that, like those who created them and destroyed them and then, many years later, restored them, they were all human.

It was summer south of the equator, and sunset came late, but tours still ended before 5 p.m. Easter Island is on its own offbeat version of daylight saving time, which makes sunset even later. That meant we had several hours of daylight each evening in Hanga Roa.

The motif of the town, of course, is moai. The downtown square is Plaza Hotu Matua, after the legendary king who the Rapa Nui say first settled the island. It has its own single moai, re-erected in the 1940s, according to the Easter Island Foundation. It's a bit of a botched job -- the statue faces out to sea instead of inland, and it sits atop its red topknot instead of vice versa.

As we took photos of Hotu Matua, little children from the nearby school played near the moai's base. They didn't pay us much attention -- just two more gringos with cameras.

That first night at the hotel, as we flipped through the picture book, the owner had made one recommendation we took to heart: For pictures at sunset, go to Ahu Tahai.

The grouping of three ahus, each with its own standing statues, is on the edge of town, a short walk across an open pasture and past the cemetery. The statues are positioned, obligingly enough, with their backs to the sea and the setting sun. We made it our mission to be there for both of our Easter Island sunsets.

On the first walk to Ahu Tahai, we found a pleasant-looking restaurant with outside tables on its front porch. Now, most of the restaurants of Hanga Roa are pleasant-looking places, with interchangeable Rapa Nui names and interchangeable menus of fish and chicken. What this one had was a location that let us relax in the shade, with big bottles of Chilean beer, while we watched everyone else wander to the statues.

We set up camp, occasionally flagging down folks we had come to recognize. There was the usual tourist chatter -- Where are you from? Where are you going? -- but one dominant theme: We were there for the moai.