Rano Raraku – Easter Island Moai Statue Quarry
Rano Raraku is the Easter Island statue quarry and not only are there cavities in the volcanic rock where the moai were carved and removed but many moai are still in various states of completion.
This is where we had to pay the $60 park entry fee which is good for five days so hopefully will not need to pay anything again it has recently gone up from $10 which it was for many years. I don’t mind paying the fee if it helps to preserve the statues.
We walk around the quarry following the designated paths and are not allowed to touch any of the statues, we spend a bit of time here exploring all the moai. Chris explains that the statues are actually in pits buried up to their necks and only 1/3 of the figures are visible, this was so the sculptors could work on the statues back and face.
We walk around the hill a bit to see a moai still attached to the cliff, Chris shows us the tool that the sculptors used to carve the statues; it was basically a hard bit of stone that the used to bang against the soft stone of the moai. We continued to walk around and saw the kneeling moai which has had to have a fence put around it due to people having their pictures taken on it’s knee causing it to get damaged, someone has even carved their initials into its back.
We then walk a bit higher and come across “El Gigante” the largest moai ever carved at 65 feet and estimated to weigh 250 tons, it is still in it’s construction phase and would have been impossible to move if complete.
To finish our tour at Rano Raraku we walk up to the craters rim to see the fresh water lake that is inside. There is also a number of moai in here as well. On the shore of the lake there are a number of reed beds.
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