Apparently every single hotel on the island alerted their tourist guests to the fact that Ahu Tongariki is the place to go for sunrise.

Because around 7:30am, all sorts of cars started arriving.  In fact, this ended up being the busiest location of all (we came in low season with just about no one – the island gets 65000 visitors a year, almost all in the months between December and February).

Well I felt more comfortable to venture out of the car with all the other sunrise-seeking tourists, so we went and set up station.

Actually though everyone was wrong, the sky didn’t start getting bright till more like 8!

Well, this was almost worth getting up early for.  Ahu Tongariki has the most number of Moai on an Ahu in the entire island, including an 86 tonne beast.