Easter Island! A lifelong dream to visit here. Our 6 days on the island, September 10-16, were spectacular!
We were able to score (relatively) inexpensive tickets - half the cost of the fare in dollars - by waiting until we arrived in Chile and buying them in Chilean pesos at the Latam counter at the airport. A few hoops to jump through - the government requires foreigners to fill out an online form prior to arrival, including either an invitation from a local resident or a reservation at a registered hotel or guest house, and a police screening at the airport to make sure everything is in order. We were required to arrive insanely early at the Santiago Airport, but in fact the screening was quick and easy. During our long wait to board we noticed that almost every passenger who looked as though they lived on the island carried at least one large box of Dunkin' Donuts - obviously a treat from the mainland.
The Polynesian name Rapa Nui translates to “Great Rapa,” intended to describe the island's resemblance to Rapa Iti, "Small Rapa", an island in Polynesia. It got the name Easter Island from the first recorded European visitor, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who landed on it on Easter Sunday in 1722. Being a special territory of Chile, it's also called Isla de Pascua.
The longest side of the triangle is only about 15 miles; it's a very small island. The island was was formed by three volcanic explosions a very long time ago (scientific, yes? you can look it up). The base of the island on the ocean floor is 50 times larger than the area above the sea.
The Rapanui are Polynesian; the island was first settled between 400-700 CE. The majority of Rapanui live on the island, with a couple thousand on the mainland in Chile, a few hundred in Tahiti, and a few hundred scattered around the world. Our guide Gina's aunt lives in Hawaii; she visits there regularly and spends time in California to break up the long 3-flight journey - Hanga Roa to Santiago, to LA, to Hawaii. The Chilean passport is one of the most desirable in the world, with visa-free entry to 174 countries, including the US.
Hanga Roa, on the southwestern side, is the only town on the island, and the only harbor. Only small boats can come into the shallow harbor; the three ships anchored offshore while we were there had their cargos of food supplies and building materials off-loaded onto small boats and ferried over to land.
A few pictures of Hanga Roa harbor and waterfront:
See the turtle in the last photo? There were so many of them!
The population of Rapa Nui pre-pandemic was about 7,000. The island was locked down, allowing no visitors in, canceling all tourism, for 872 days. During that time the population shrank to under 5,000. In recent years over 75% of inhabitants have made their living from tourism; during lockdown there was a move towards more traditional ways of living - more fishing, the creation of over 1,200 urban gardens. As one person said, "We thought that tourist dollars buy eggs so why should we raise chickens?"... the islanders are now working to find a balance. On August 4, 2022 the first tourist flight arrived from Santiago; Latam Airlines started with 2 flights a week. It was only the week we flew to Rapa Nui - 13 months later - that they'd increased to 7 days a week.
DAY ONE. We landed at 1:30 after a 5-hour flight and easily got a taxi for the 10-minute ride to our little hotel, located on the south end of Hanga Roa. We were provided with free snorkel gear, mosquito repellant, rain ponchos and a big battery-operated light just in case. We stayed at Hotel Boutique La Pérouse, with a small main building and bungalows on the water, named after seaman Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse.
The main house.
Our bungalow.
Morning view from our porch.
The little museum next to our bungalow.
Tadeo Lili Teao Fréchet Cultural Foundation is a private non-profit foundation that was created in 2013 as a tribute from Lili Fréchet to her husband Tadeo Teao, born Rapanui, who died in 2011. The little museum was next door to us. Liliane Fréchet Teao Hereveri was born in France in 1942. She taught French as a foreign language in French Cultural Centres (Morocco, Laos, Brazil) and is the co-author of methods to teach French as a foreign language for scientists. She settled twenty years ago on Easter Island. Owner of a guesthouse in Hanga Roa, she married a Rapa Nui man of ancient lineage. She was the curator of a major exhibition: La Pérouse's Crossing in Easter Island, a Woman's Tribute. The museum houses the artwork of her late husband, who is buried in the front yard. Sadly, the museum is now closed due to Lili's recent death. Hopefully it will be reopened in the future. Read more about the love story that led to the opening of the museum, and the artwork and artifacts inside it.
We saw his grave and surrounding sculptures every time we went in or out our front gate.
After a warm welcome from Paula, our landlady, she recommended the restaurant next door - the Polynesian - so I had the first of many delicious ceviches.
Lunch (ceviche every day!).
The view from the Polynesian patio:
We then walked to the downtown harbor and along the water to see our first Moai!
Between roughly 1000 and 1650 CE, Rapanui carvers created over 1,000 Moai, nearly all of which are still there. The Moai represent ancestral chiefs who were believed to be descended directly from the gods and whose supernatural powers could be harnessed for the benefit of humanity. Their sacred energy or magical spirit essence - mana - was preserved as their bodies were buried under the platforms - ahu - on which many of the Moai were placed. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/foundations/moai-rapa-nui
Most of the images we've all seen show the giant heads, but in fact the majority of Moai on the island are entire torsos. The truly enormous ones - the ones showing just heads and shoulders - are up on the hillside near the quarry and do actually have bodies but they are buried; the bodies were buried to protect them during a period of tribal warfare. They also are by far the largest ones; it would have been nearly impossible to move them. In later times the Moai were smaller - although that's a relative term - to make moving them across the island somewhat easier. The average height of a Moai is about 13 ft and weighing an average of 14 tons, but some are up to 40 ft tall. The biggest known Moai, Te Totanga or the Giant One, is still lying in the quarry unfinished. It would have been about 60 feet high with an estimated weight of 250 tons! You can see it reclining in the rocks at the bottom of the photo.
There are only 11 known female Moai; one is in the museum in Hanga Roa:
More Moai are being discovered and excavated up to present day; one this past April in a dried-up lake bed.
Here's the first one we saw, on the harbor, across from the soccer field, a 5-minute walk from our bungalow.
Next to it is this one, much more weathered.
The platform it's on is called an ahu, which contains the bones of the ancestor it represents and honors.
These are along the road on the way up to the famous Moai with red and white eyes.
One of the very few Moai with white eyes and red pupils was just a 20-minute walk from our bungalow: the area is called Tahai and that Moai is named Ko Te Riku. It's the island’s only complete moai, wearing a red pukao headdress and featuring restored eyes.
Remnant of a Moai head showing eye and nose, in the Rapa Nui Museum.
Many of the Moai, and the two quarries where they were carved, are in national parks. Visitors must buy a park pass, $80 for use up to 10 days, and must be accompanied into the parks by guides who have Rapanui blood. The park passes are linked to your passport number and must be shown along with a copy of your passport whenever entering a park. Some of the parks only allow a one-time entrance, due to the fragility of the site.
The Tahai site, above, the few Moai in town along the harbor, and some other locations around the island are available to view without a park pass - they're just out in the open, along roadsides or beaches, or out in fields or rocky slopes. You can't walk right up to them, though; they are either on platforms - ahu - which are surrounded by small rock borders, or have railings around them. It would be easy to climb onto the platforms or go through the railings, but everyone we saw was very respectful. No graffiti, either, or initials carved on them.
There's a large green field around the Tahai site with horses wandering freely.
It was a warm sunny afternoon and we spent it gazing at the Moai in wonder, looking at the local cemetery, then dinner at a place with a great view of the sunset.
DAY TWO. Monday was my birthday - so fantastic to spend it in a place I've dreamed of seeing for most of my life! We rented a jeep and drove up to the north end of the island to one of only two sandy beaches, Anakena Beach.
After a swim, we walked up the sand dunes to look at the Moai there.
There was a nice little restaurant at the beach with flower crowns that people borrowed for photographs.
We drove back along the coast, viewing more Moai and gazing at the gorgeous rocks and ocean all the way back to town. We passed an important Moai site - Tongariki - and Abram took this great video:
The site itself is on National Park land so you can't go in without a park pass and a Rapanui guide, but there was a wonderful view from the road available to everyone. There was a tsunami in 1960 that knocked over these Moai and dragged them 600 feet inland, also destroying the ahu they stood on. In the 1990's the site was restored by a team of archeologists from the University of Chile which led a group of cartographers, architects, geographers, historians, engineers and representatives from UNESCO. The project was funded largely by a Japanese philanthropist and businessman who not only donated two massive cranes for lifting and transporting the Moai, but also donated cash. There is always controversy with this sort of project - see this NYT article from 1993-https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/16/science/archeologists-at-odds-on-restoring-statues.html - but speaking as a person who viewed Tongariki in awe last week, I personally am very happy they were restored.
A short way down the road we saw this fallen Moai: so poignant.
When the Europeans began arriving in 1722, the Moai were still standing. By the end of the 19th century, they had all fallen over, not by tsunamis like Tongariki: there are different theories about why - some believe it was because of earthquake activity, others say the statues were toppled during tribal wars as a way of humiliating their opposition. Some say the visiting Europeans knocked down many of them.
A 1955 visit by Thor Heyerdahl launched a decades-long period of restoration. Heyerdahl came with five archaeologists: Arne Skjølsvold from Norway, Gonzalo Figueroa from Chile, and Edwin N. Ferdon, William T. Mulloy and Carlyle S. Smith from the United States. William Mulloy began a life-long commitment to and love of the island - he was responsible for the restoration of Tahai (mentioned above), and is buried on the island.
Stock photo of his grave in front of the Tahai Moai:
Photo from Kon-Tiki Museum:
Returning to the present, here are some pics of the eastern coastline as we drove home:
Back in Hanga Roa, we had the first of several dinners at a restaurant near our bungalow, the Polynesian. The woman chef is from Tahiti and really knows fish; her partner has a garden and provides all the delicious greens. It's considered one of the best places on the island, due largely to the freshness and variety of its fish. Dinner and sunset; and a bit of rain. That's one thing about an island - the weather is constantly changing. We had good weather during our 6-day stay, mostly hovering around 70 degrees, a bit of wind, lots of gorgeous clouds, very mild, not too humid. After dark, in off-season, there's not much doing, at least not out on the edge of town where our guesthouse is. There are a couple of larger hotels - both low-rise, yay - and a couple of spots to have dinner and see a show of local dancers, but we didn't do either of those. The sunset and gazing at Moai was entertainment enough.
DAY THREE. We had a slow morning, returned the jeep in town, and booked a small-group tour for the afternoon to visit some caves (lava tunnels). It's amazing how many interconnected tunnels there are - some go on for miles and miles. During times of war or when there was danger, such as slavers, the people would go into the caves and seal off the entrances. They were able to grow food inside, and some of the longer ones which ended at the shore allowed them to go out to sea to fish. There was also a source of fresh water inside the caves.
An interesting by-product of the areas in front of the caves is a variety of distinct bio-zones where unusual plants grow - see the banana tree below.
The entrance to one of the caves; you have to climb down a steep slope to get into to the cave itself.
A tree growing from way down at the cave entrance (not my photo):
We saw only one Moai on this tour, an unusual one that was reconstructed or recycled from several sections of broken and fallen Moai. This one is more of an art project than a spiritual icon - there's no ahu and no buried bones. In the photos below you can see the horizontal lines and different colored stone showing where the various sections were joined.
After an afternoon of somewhat hot and sweaty strenuous clambering over volcanic rocks we returned to our guesthouse around 6:00. True to our natures, Abram went for a refreshing swim in the ocean while I went for a refreshing cocktail at the Polynesian. We ended up dining there with some people from the afternoon tour: two Italian men who have traveled together every September for 15 years to various locations around the world, a young woman oceanographer and penguin specialist from Monterey, CA (she'd been at a penguin conference in Viña del Mar, not far from Santiago), and a young man from (I think) Taiwan who has been on the road for 9 months. One of the great things about traveling - fellow travelers!
DAY FOUR. We booked a private tour to two places we particularly wanted to see: Rano Raraku, the hillside quarry where the largest Moai are, and Orongo, the long-abandoned village on the southern tip of the island, home of the Birdman cult. More about rise and fall of the cult after our visit to Rano Raraku.
Our terrific tour guide Gina Pakarati is from a very old Rapanui family; her 97-year-old grandmother is the oldest person on the island and is a treasure trove of history and culture. Here are some extracts from a book her uncle wrote:
She drove us along the coast then inland and uphill towards the massive hillside where the main quarry is. There's another smaller quarry with the red rock used to make the headdresses but we didn't visit it.
Below is a Moai honoring a longtime quarry boss. He wasn't royalty so he didn't get to be placed on an ahu. He apparently sang to the crew to keep them motivated and also kneeled to pray to the gods every day - his is the only known kneeling statue.
No captions needed. Rano Raraku, a truly magnificent experience.
Here is a picture of two incomplete Moai - they are lying in the side of the quarry, both on their backs - a smaller darker one with his head to the right and a larger lighter one above with his head to the left.
A better picture of the larger one:
This photo from the Kon-Tiki Museum shows the excavation which revealed that the giant heads at the quarry do in fact have complete bodies. Gina told us that they were kept buried after trhe excavation to protect the stone that had been underground for centuries.
After our visit to the quarry and hillside Moai, we drove to the southern tip of the island and up the side of Rano Kao volcano to Orongo. As the Moai carving era ended, new gods replaced the old ones while a struggle for power among the tribes was also happening. In order to settle this in a non-violent manner, the Birdman Cult was established, with an annual competition every September to decide who would lead the Rapanui each year. Around 1500 CE a growing population led to increased pressure on the environment. By the end of the 17th century, the Rapanui had deforested the island, triggering war, famine and cultural collapse. The Birdman Cult arose, only to be squelched by the Catholics 100 years later.
The Orongo village, built on the side of the Rano Kao crater, is where royalty lived and the competition took place. One man was choaen from each tribe and trained all year for the competition. On one particulate day in September the competition was held: the men carried small lightweight wood cylindrical flotation devices, ran across a series of jagged peaks on the edge of the crater, jumped off a cliff into the ocean, swam half a mile through shark-infested water to a small island where they searched for a newly-laid egg by the sooty tern. Whoever found an egg first tucked it into a little forehead pouch in a head wrap, swam back, climbed up the cliff, ran back across the jagged peaks and presented the egg to last year's king... becoming king himself for the upcoming year.
The jagged peaks.
The crater, partially filled with water and growing things.
The small islands they swam to. Sometimes it took two or three weeks to find an egg. They fished and drank fresh water from lava caves.
Some pictures of the village and the grass-topped stone houses they built and lived in.
As a counterpart to the competitors were the virgins. A young virgin was chosen from each tribe at the beginning of each year. They were sequestered inside a cave for the entire year, given good food and cared for. As the competition neared they were brought out and "assessed for maximum fertility" by the local gynecologist. The one deemed to be most fertile was given in marriage to the winner of the completion. Since they often came from differing tribes, this was a good way to intermarry and further reduce tribal warfare.
Then along came the Catholics, who had a good reputation on the island because they'd help stop Peruvian slavers and had even managed to get some islanders returned from slavery on the mainland. (Too long a story to tell here!) The Catholics convinced them to stop the pagan traditions and 1867 was the final year of the Birdman competition.
Some Birdman-related petroglyphs from the Rapa Nui Museum.
After Orongo we went back down the mountain to our bungalow and lunch; later that same day Abram ran into Gina with her young niece, getting ice cream down at the harbor. She invited us to join her and her pals at a bar for her 40th birthday party on Friday, our departure day, and we were tempted to see about changing our departure to a day later!
DAY FIVE. Abram rented a jeep to go back to Anakuna beach to swim and snorkel, while I went to the Rapa Nui Museum and to explore the town some more.
Images from the museum:
The last three images are part of a temporary exhibition by a local artist - Sebastian Pakariti - related somehow to our guide Gina - who spent time in Texas and was inspired by the cow skull art he saw there. He did a series of painted skulls of island cows.
My walk back to town from the museum took me past the white-and-red-eyed Moai, and what I had learned was a former grass-roofed dwelling. It's much larger than the individual houses we saw in Orongo and has several entrances - some sort of communal dwelling or community gathering place?
Some random pics of Hanga Roa town:
I bought a couple of teeshirts - gotta have a Moai shirt - and Abram and I both got a fun one from a little musical instrument store in town, RapaMusic, with a great image on the back of a Moai head with big headphones on.
After Abram got back from the beach we returned the jeep and walked down to the harbor around 5:00 for ice cream and iced coffee, and scored a great table for people-watching. The soccer kids were practicing across the street, lots of people swimming (with the many turtles!), local families riding down to the harbor on motorcycles to hang out, and tourists beginning to arrive in larger numbers. Friday the 15th was the first day of a 5-day weekend; Chilean Independence Day is September 18 and Day of the Glories of the Army is September 19. Lots of people arriving from the mainland to spend their long weekend on the island.
Everyone rides motorcycles.
One of many turtles!
Apéro at a French cafe.
Final dinner at the Polynesian. Many restaurants in town are closed, some still due to recovery from the pandemic, some because it's off-season. We were lucky this one was open!
DAY SIX - DEPARTURE.
We had to be at the airport at 1:00, so spent the morning chatting with some people also staying at our guesthouse, wandering the town, buying food for lunch, revisiting the harbor and Moais. It was the first day of extended heavy rain and cold temperatures, which made it a tiny bit easier to leave. As we were waiting for our taxi to the airport we were treated to an extended frolic by three whales out near the three ships - spouting, breaching and lots of tail slapping! What a lovely farewell.
Leaving you with a fun video about an experiment to see if the Moai could indeed be "walked" (like walking a refrigerator across a room, leaning and rocking corner to corner) across the island. Some say they were rolled on poles/tree trunks. Some are sure they were walked. Just one example of how the Moai and the Rapanui who built them have captured the imaginations of so many people.
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Great post. Loved the pictures and commentary. I had no knowledge of the culture, the island, and I feel enriched for reading your piece. Thank you so much.
love reading about your adventures - what an incredible beautiful historical and magical place!
Thank you for all of the information and wonderful visuals. The stone walls are gorgeous!
What a birthday dream come true!! Fascinating and mysterious. Great photos. Thank you, Val for taking us along on your ride 😃
So happy for you and a VERY belated Happy Birthday!