Our third day was supposed to consist of seeing the most dramatic of the moai and then time in the sand at the only beach on the island. We woke up, donned our beach apparel, boarded our bus, and the drops began to fall...and the wind began to whip. In a moment, it turned ugly and cold. And we were ill prepared.
Jake did what he could to summon the moai gods to bring a little sunshine. I think he was at one with them :)
We made it to Ahu Tongariki in time to get down there and see the one moai with the remaining red hat atop his head.
Way behind this guy is the mega quarry where they dug for the stone to carve the heads and torsos
Then it started to pour. Our beach towels turned into coats really quickly.
Someone wasn't too thrilled with the situation. I gave him my hat to try and shield some of the drops. Didn't do much in the way of changing his mood.
We happily boarded our transportation again and dried off a bit. Then we reached the quarry. This place was amazing. And if the weather weren't so horrendous, I think we would have felt a little more of the magical mysteries of the island.
Heads were everywhere!
We bought some adult ponchos and tried to adjust them for the kids so they could walk.
It was freezing, and the rain just kept coming down harder and harder!
There are some of the moai literally still in the carving process in the quarry.
There is a huge moai right above us in this picture, lying down on it's back. You can't really tell from the angle, but they were literally EVERYWHERE!
And way off in the distance, you can see where we had just come from.
By the end, you could barely open your eyes, the rain was stinging so badly! We didn't really care about the last few moai, we just wanted to make it to shelter! So did everyone else. I was shocked that I got smiles out of the kids!!
We were DRENCHED. Our shoes were filled with water, our clothes were sticking to us and as we sat down for lunch, Kate looked at me and said through tear-filled eyes, "Can we just please go home, now?" Luke had thrown in the towel long before. He didn't say much and just stayed cradled in Joe's arms the entire time. Jake took it like a man. But I think secretly, we all wanted to go home, take hot showers and snuggle under our covers to get warm.
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