After a few days in Santiago we flew six hours into the Pacific to Easter Island. Known as Rapa Nui by the locals, this is a relatively small island on the edge of Polynesia, and we had arrived at the most remote airport in the world and almost 1,800 miles from the nearest other people.
It was all going well as we arrived as all the other passengers were met by hosts who put leis round their necks, until we found that we were the only people left outside the airport with nobody to meet us. After lots of discussions with local passers by, we got a taxi to our hotel and found it was empty, except we did see a whiteboard with our names on it. It wasn’t until later that the receptionist came back, apparently after the hotel had been fumigated, and we were shown to our room as the only guests in the hotel. Welcome to Rapa Nui.
This was a bizarre start as we actually had a wonderful time after that. We had two days touring the island, with a wonderful guide called Nicolas. Everybody was friendly and smiley and the sites were incredible. Despite it being winter and in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we actually had lovely weather, except for the rain on the last day; and even that gave us lovely rainbows.
See the panel on the right called “Easter Island” for the history of the island. It is fascinating that all of the history takes place in an area about the size of Dartmoor, with all the wars and fighting that have taken place. The huge moai are incredible to see, where they have been restored. Some of them are huge, but few have the topknots or pukao, and even fewer have their original, or restored, eyes.
It was such a great place to see, and incredibly unique. The people here are Polynesian, hence their jovial nature. Nobody except locals is allowed to own land, so the place is mercifully free of any brands, either hotel or shopping and restaurants. The place is full of fresh fish and seafood, and is fairly wealthy despite everything having to be shipped in from the mainland 3,000 miles away.
After three days we were sad to leave the island. We had a great time and have now seen two very different sides to Chile after here and Santiago. We now head north to see what else Chile can provide.
