Little Rental Car

 So today I picked up the little rental car, a 4x4 as the roads are pretty rough - in fact so rough this car permanently shakes even when not on a rough road ! The pic up top is only there as a cow near the top and that's a steep hill!

 Below are the only Moai facing the ocean - all the others face inland looking over the people - this is a way from the ocean though...

 I love the colour of the water here.

 But in places it is  little rough!

 Fallen Moai, from the wars and squabble are the norm on the coast - most of those standing were re-erected by archeologists.

 I will give you a warning, you're in for a lot of Moai!

 The quarry is perhaps the best Moai spot of all - there's litterally hundreds in all different stages of being produced.

If the bike in BsAs shook me up, this car has me shaking when I step out of it, it just becomes natural!

 The weird thing about this spot of course as that you can see some unfinished ones.

 The long ears were a feature that vanished by the time missionaries arrived, 16th century or so.

 Here's a body being cut out of the rock.

 so there's prrof they didn't come from aliens :) All kinds of theories how they were moved though, most using up a lot of wood. The natural trees grew slow, so once they used them up, they were in trouble!

 I have hundreds more if you would like to see them! LOL.

 The faces look largely the same, but there are small differences for who they modelled. Roughly 900 Moai were cut, about 280 got to stand on their Ahu, the rest are scattered on the way to an Ahu or here at the quarry.

 Below is the largest row of Moai on their Ahu, if you see Ahu as a temple, there are bones of the person depicted buried underneath. Why this one is so big, who knows.

 Stone below was very experimental for the time, it has a different pose and buttocks, but it's the only one like it.

 Right by here I saw an SUV pull up with "British Consulate Easter Island" and the Queen's emblem - turns out he runs a tour business!

The quarry is in the side of a volcano, here is the crater of this volcano, like the other one I saw, it's flooded.

You can see right the way over town on the horizon from here, and we're very near the far side of the island.

 This one is distant from the quarry - see how they are scattered all over.

 The funny thing about this long stand is not the front...

Majestic though they are with their fancy red hair do's.

 It's the back that's the fun bit though, 'cause they all look like they're peeing!

 As I drive around the island i wanted to be in the water, but too late to dive now, so less than 24 hrs before flying, diving is not on.

 There's a fish on the petroglyph below...

 This one is a raft or canoe, yeah, i don't get it either.

 O'vae is a nice little beach, though it sounds like a Jewish exclamation!

 Look at the water!

 This stop is Anakena beach.

The Moais here have fun little hats/hair do's.

 I ate lovely tuna and onion empanadas here on the beach - was great! Clouding over a bit again though!

 These lovely little flowers were all over.

 In case none of you did your homework, the three volcano cones made the island into a triangle shape.

The stray dogs and the birds seem attracted to me here...

 The Moai below, close to town so I saw him a lot, is because of the cloud highlighted to show his power..

 Super Nova!

 This Moai is one of the few with eyes painted on, they used coral and onyx or other stones to make eyes, but only one fragment remains.

I warned you of Moai Mania!

This night i was going to go to some Polynesian music show, but it was packed! So I went to eat at a sandwich shop instead. I made it a favourite because they made them how I liked them, everyday i would ask for something new. They have a lot of tuna to eat here, which is fine by me!

So yesterday (Wednesday) I left Easter Island in the evening and headed through Lima for tee shirt shopping at the airport - then on at 1:20am to Sao Paulo arriving 9:20am, then 3 hrs later heading to Rio. It is cloudy here :( Not sure how this will work out. Rain forecast tomorrow :( This is the Atlantic Rainforest region, but I was hoping for blue skies!

Anyway the last two days will be rolled into 1 update, as frankly, I was stoned out my head for a chunk of it, snoring away the miles!

Time to eat Acai berries fresh from the Amazon ! Yummy!