Exotické destinácie Exotic destinations
O autorovi
When somebody says Rapa Nui only
few people know that it is an aboriginal name of Easter Island. Original inhabitants used to call it „Te Pito o te
Henua“ – The Navel of the World.
Lásku k cestovaniu mi vypestovali asi
už moji rodičia, ktorí s nami už ako
s deťmi cestovali kam až to „železná
opona“ dovolila. Neskôr som ako
študent pracoval ako externý sprievodca cestovnej kancelárie Čedok.
Po otvorení hraníc sa nám otvoril aj
svet a ja som mohol naplno odovzdávať lásku k cestovaniu svojim
deťom. Táto cestovateľská vášeň ma
neopúšťa a stále hovorím – „je jedno
kde som, hlavne že sa mi zadok na
ceste natriasa“.
Do exotických krajín vyrážame hľadať nové prostredie, zážitky a ľudí.
Avšak to najdôležitejšie, čo tam môžeme nájsť sme my sami.
Vladimír Mego
cestovateľ
The Navel of the World
It concerns one of the most isolated
places in the world. It is situated more
than 3700 km from South America.
The name amazes also because of the
fact that the island is only 12 kilometres wide! The island arose in the Pacific
Ocean million years ago by alloying of
lava from three volcanic cones to the triangular mainland.
Only two aeroplanes arrive there every
second day in a week. The airport is situated on the border of Hanga Roa, which
is the only settlement on the island where about 3800 inhabitants live. It is perhaps the only village in the world which
has an international airport. Otherwise, it stands out by nothing - ground
buildings many of them made of wood,
small hotels, restaurants and shops.
The island with not tall volcanic “loaves”
is rocky, almost without trees, covered
only by the grass and bushes. In the rented cross-country car we set off on the
sightseeing. All around, we can see rocky surface and stone walls. We are arriving to first “ahu” - a cairn on the coast.
There are several littering statues - moai.
They are stone colossi about 5 metres
high. They were built on some platform
from half to one metre over the ground,
called ahu. On the whole Easter Island
there are about 350 ahu. Some of them
are with statues, others without them.
Moai was built by an advanced civilization from the unknown reasons about
thousand years ago.
In the southern coast of the island the
crater Rano Raraku is situated protruding about 200 metres over the island
surface. It is the place where all 600 statues were carved. Around half of them
was finished, transported and raised,
the second half stayed here in different
phases of processing. We are crossing
the “forest” created by several metres
high statues which are differently inclined and got covered with ground. There
are also some unfinished ones. They are
only cut into massif. From the slope of
the crater is a view on the whole islan