The Rapa Nui writing system, called rongorongo uses glyphs and is boustrophedonic (you can thank me for that word the next time you play Scrabble). This means you would start reading from the bottom left corner, from left to right, then turn the tablet upside down, and continue reading left to right. The previously read line of text is now upside down. As an armchair linguist, I find this fascinating and exciting! No one has ever successfully decoded the glyphs. The Rapa Nui lost their knowledge of their unique writing system when slave raiders and a seventy year civil war wiped out much of the population.
Fishing has always been important in Rapa Nui.
Fun fact: the entire island was rented out as a sheep farm for the first half of the twentieth century!
In the afternoon, I hiked to Vinapu, the last major site I hadn't yet visited. On my way there, I passed a great tree that I couldn't resist climbing.
All of the moai at Vinapu have toppled over, one way or another. It really is quite something to see these massive stone statues (and their hats!) lying in pieces on the ground.
I caught one last sunset behind the moai.
To celebrate a great week in Rapa Nui, a friend and I got dressed up (that is, we put on clean clothes) and went out for a nice dinner at a restaurant overlooking the water. We took one last long look at the clear, starry sky before turning in for the night.
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