Easter Island

Early last Friday morning the whole group of exchange students on our program sleepily met at the Santiago airport in order to travel to Easter Island (also called Isla de Pascua in Spanish, and Rapa Nui to the residents of the island). Easter Island is over 3000 miles from the coast of Chile and just as far from French Polynesia to the West. After a five hour flight we landed in the most beautiful place I have ever been.
Easter Island is the most isolated yet still populated island in the world. Only people born on the island are allowed to own land and the majority of the island is a national park, meaning that it is not overdeveloped or incredibly touristy.
After settling into our hotel we began touring the Island. The first place we went to was the Rano Kau volcano which had erupted and the top had collapsed leaving a crater a mile wide. The crater had filled with rain water and various plants over time. From here we also were able to see a tiny piece of land off the coast where men used to have to swim and retrieve an egg from a bird that nested there. They then had to make it back to Easter Island without breaking the egg. The first man to make it back won 'birdman' status and a lot of respect for the year. We also stopped at a point from which you could see almost all of the island. After a group dinner we spent the evening stargazing. The Milky Way was clearly visible and I saw at least two shooting stars! Easily the most stars I have ever seen.

Our hotel:


We all got lei'd at the airport!
Off the edge of a cliff near our hotel, the water was such a pretty color:

Volcano Rano Kau:
The small island that men would swim to in order to bring back an egg:
Rapa Nui homes:
A wild fruit that we all tried:
The second day we toured more of the island and got to see A LOT of Moai (the giant statues that make Easter Island famous). There were around 900 Moai on the island at one point and all were knocked down during civil wars. After the island was discovered they began to stand up some of the Moai again. Many are still knocked down though:


This place has the most standing Moai on the island! An amazing place where we spent a few hours taking pictures with the 15 standing Moai.

Moai with a hat! How did they get it up there?
The Moai are very mysterious. No one knows for sure how the Rapa Nui first got them to stand up and how they moved them around the island. There are many different theories on how they were moved: rolled on logs, or moved refrigerator style.

We also got to go to the Moai factory, where most of the Moai were built. They were carved from this one mountain and there are tons of Moai in varying stages of completion scattered down the side of the hill, many of which have been buried over time.




We ended the tour with a few hours on the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. Lush green grass and palm trees turn into soft white sand and clear blue water. Also a group of Moai face inland from the edge of the sand. I spent most of the time swimming far out into the warm water. It was so clear that even when it was too deep to swim to the bottom I could see all the way down.


At the end of the day we ate atun empanadas and watched the sun set before we went to a Rapa Nui dance show.

At the show a bunch of us got our faces painted and had the chance to dance on the stage with the dancers!

A very interesting dance show involving very little clothing:

The third day we visited the hat factory, the place where the Rapa Nui carved hats for the Moai from red rock. We explored a cave where some Rapa Nui used to hide out in order to stay pale. The guide lead us all the way through the very dark cave. We stumbled along using our camera flashes and Allison's booklamp to light the way. We also visited a the only Moai that are facing outward towards the sea.

Good friends and good fun on Easter Island.

We had an afternoon free so Natalia, Cody and I hitch hiked from our hotel to Hanga Roa (the only town on the Island) and tried to find some surfboards (don't worry, hitch hiking is a safe and acceptable way to get around Easter Island). Everywhere was closed since it was Sunday but we were able to borrow boogie boards from the man running the empanada stand where we ate lunch. We spent the afternoon trying to avoid cutting our feet on the rocky bottom of the ocean and riding waves. The next morning we made a trip to the overpriced artisan market to buy souvenirs and got our passports stamped before heading back to the airport to return to Santiago.
I took about 800 photos on Easter Island but I don't think that they or this blog post can really do justice to how incredible the trip was. The Island was absolutely beautiful and the isolation was refreshing. It was a very carefree weekend and I don't think I've ever been so content. Although it is very expensive, I would love to go back again one day.