Easter Island

Back in 1979 the rock band Styx released an album called Cornerstone, the cover of which featured the portrait pictures of a lady along side the Moai Statues of Easter Island. Pretty much ever since then, i'd hope one day to be able to make the trip to the other side of the world to see them for real. We had been planning our trip to Antarctica, and try decide the best way to make the journey. Chile and Argentina were on our list of places to visit, and now post pandemic you can only get to Easter Island via Santiago, Chile. Unfortunately as the world was coming out of the Covid Pandemic, Easter Island was closed to tourists. Then a stroke of luck, just as we were finalising our itinerary, we heard the news that Easter Island was opening, and by the time we visited some 6 months later, would be fully open. So we slightly amended our itinerary, made the decision to remove one of the stops in Argentina to give us the time to visit Easter Island.

The flight to Easter Island is operated by LATAM B787, an aircraft with long enough range that if it meant we couldn't land, it could turn back safely to Santiago. We left Santiago early, and arrived at Easter Island some 5 hours later, we were met at the airport and taken to our hotel just on the outskirts of the main area. Simple, clean accommodation with A/C is really all you need, and the Hotel Altiplanico was a nice place to stay. A pathway by the beach making a short cut to the town. A strange occurrence happened every day, where on our walks to town we were escorted by a different village dog, who would meet us at the end of the lane and walk with us, all the way to town, it happened every time we ventured out. Another strange phenomenon, is that the Chilean Govt have kept Easter Island slightly out of time with their geographical position in the world, practically this means that mornings are cool and still quite dark, whereas it stays light and uncannily warm long into the evening, as the Island is 2 hours out of time from where it should be .

We visited for 3 full days and had tours planned for every day, visiting the sites of the Moai, and their history, and the quarry where they were carved. Yet though there are many theories, there still isn't the proof required to know why the islanders stopped making the statues. You can see on walks, many of them just lying flat on the ground, where they were left during transportation. It was truly amazing to see these monolithic faces guarding ancient villages, and they were only every finished once the eyes were painted in. On our final full day, we joined our guide for a 20 km hike around the coast line, taking in many Moai sites. It was truly an isolating experience, internet signal was sporadic at the least, which meant we were virtually cut off from the outside world, which doesn't happen very often in the modern world, and we loved not being connected and having a bit of a tech break.

We loved our visit, the people and our excellent guides who shared their stories and lives with us.