Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is a tiny island in the middle of the pacific ocean and is about 6 hours flight from Santiago. Having felt completely overwhelmed and exhausted from my big race in Antarctica, I decided that I would go there no matter and luckily found a reasonable ticket.
As well as being a natural beauty with clear blue ocean, palm trees and sunshine, the Island is a big open air museum as it is home to the mystic statutes that defies logic mostly in terms of the people who made them and why they were made . These giant figures are called “Moa” and some of these are erected on platforms called “Ahu. Moas are giant human figures or faces carved out of rocks and somehow were carried accross different spots in the Island from where they are made (Rano Raraku) and this incredible transportation is still a mystery. I didn’t join a guided tour of these spots as I preferred to explore the whole Island by walking, running and cycling. However, I did read a little about the Island’s history and various theories of why / how these statures were built. Also the stories of explotation by outsiders and slave traders taking the strong men an women of the Island thus contributing to the rapid disappearance of both the culture and the Islanders themself. Of all, what strikes me the most is that the obsession by the Rapa Nui people to build these Moa’s is what brought their demise in the end, they had cut their trees for transportation and construction of these giant statutes and used up what probably seemed to be endless resources to the point that there was hunger and even stories of cannibalism.
Centuries later, I think that the current issue in the island is the number of hotels and the fact that more is being built. The locals are trying to make most of the visitors but despite this inflation of hotels the Island is extremely expensive.
All of that said, it is still one of the most impressive places I have been. I do hope that the Island will make it to top of your list of places to see and you get to go there sometime soon. I write about my 3 days on the island in the next post.
Busy Feet 