Welcome to my Kosrae-Pohnpei blog - May 1 - May 20!

I hope you enjoy my blog about my solo trip to Kosrae and Pohnpei May 1st through May 20th.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The ancient city of Nan Madol


Today we set out for Nan Madol.  I say we because I met an extremely nice couple at dinner last night by the name of Russel and Carrie.....


They are NOAA scientists based out of Honolulu who just got done doing a 2 month cruise through the Western Pacific Islands.  They do coral monitoring - scuba diving 7 days a week - 4-6 dives per day.  They call it work - I call it a dream job and they were very gracious in answering all of my questions.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  They are on a delayed honeymoon of sorts having been married 4 months ago so are island hopping back from Saipan to Honolulu as that is where their work cruise terminated.

We first attempted to snorkel with the mantas after leaving the Village harbor but we struck out so headed off to the Kepirohi Waterfall as part of our tour.  The trail leading in was even spectacular......


And then the gorgeous waterfall itself.  It was fairly tall as you can see compared to the palm tree and was quite majestic.........



We had a nice lunch on a beach on a small island within the Pohnpei lagoon and then off to Nan Madol.  Nan Madol's construction began in 1100 AD and took 200-300 years to complete.  It is spread over 92 artificial islets extending over one mile on the reef on the southeastern side of Pohnpei.  It was a place of worship housing royalty and their servants.  Wide basalt pillars, up to 23 feet long, formed naturally into hexagonal columns and some weighing over 60 tons make up the construction.  Legend says that the pillars were moved by "magic" as they were obviously much too heavy for men to lift; even in teams.  That theory was challenged many decades ago by attempting to construct rafts made by materials believed to be available at the time; sturdy enough to float a medium sized pillar high enough using high tide and each attempt failed miserably so no-one really knows how the ancient city was actually built.


A tomb......


I liked this shot because it shows the sound engineering - obviously to last 900+ years in this good of shape..........



They used coral in between the basalt columns as filler as shown in this shot........



We then headed off to explore the rest of the ancient city by kayak which was stunning and a ton of fun.

1 comment:

  1. Incredible, isn't it? Glad you had some new friends to share the day with. They sound like a great couple to hang out with.

    ReplyDelete