Anakena
Our next stop was Anakena. It was a beautiful white coral sand beach with lots of coconut palm trees and a great place to spend some time. The coconut palm trees were reintroduced from Tahiti as the original Rapa Nui destroyed all the trees on the island. This beach is reported to be where the first king landed and where he lived on the island. I can see why as it was the best beach we saw, by far. Most of the coast is rocky. Anakena also has two ahus.
As for the ahus, the first ahu only has one moai which you can see in the first photo. It's the Ature Huke, which is the moai that Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian explorer, restored when he was on Easter Island. This was the first moai to be restored on Easter Island. It was restored in 1956 using only “natural methods”. That means that they used only rocks, logs, ropes, and people power. I think the idea was to prove that these huge moai could be raised without modern day equipment. All I know is that Thor picked a great spot to spend his time restoring a statue. The beach and water here were wonderful.
The second photo was taken from the statue in the first photo. This second ahu has seven moai. These statues were not restored by Thor Heyerdahl but they are just to the left of the first photo. They were restored in 1978 by a native group.
