This week on the Easter Islands was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. We thought we would have lots of time to rest and do nothing spending a whole week on this island, but were very busy visiting the various events of the festival and the more famous sites of standing Moai. Besides, from midday to late afternoon, the sun is simply too strong for any major undertaking!

Of course, the highlights of the island are the Moai, their history and the many mysteries around them. What really surprised us was that even in the high season, you can enjoy the different sites in total quietness. The Rapa Nui Museum is a must stop before you set out to see the Moai, because there you find many explanations or at least theories as well as many pieces of information about this culture.

The other highlight definitely was the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival, which was in many ways an outstanding experience. It is one of the most genuine festivals we have experienced so far! The day before we left the whole village only talked about how many points each group had gathered and that Lucy, the queen candidate of the “Blue group”, was the sure winner. Our hosts considered our departure as a true loss, because we participating in the festival would have added 8 points to the blue team. Nobody was more sorry than us for missing the carnival parade!

Even though Easter Island is definitely no budget destination, it is absolutely possible to keep the budget at a bearable level. In one week, we spent 410 Euros or slightly above 58 Euros per day per person. With “only” 30 Euros per night, we chose one of the cheapest places, but the rooms were very airy and we had kitchen-use. This was the most important aspect: since we never ate at a restaurant, we saved a lot of money! Shopping for food in Hanga Roa is very expensive, but prices in restaurants are simply outrageous! So we had great meals with good wines for about 16 Euros per person and day, the price of one main course in many restaurants.

Even during the time of the Tapati Festival in February, there is no need to book ahead: we could choose from several possibilities for every category of accommodation, from the cheapest to the most expensive. The only thing that can be hard to get during these two festival weeks is transportation, but you can always go by cab, which is not much more expensive than renting a car.

At Residencial Petero Atamu, our home for one week, we met the extended family of Senora Dalia Pakarati, her daughters Pina, Loli, the grandchildren and cousins. They all live in this plot of land in seven bungalows surrounded by banana and mango trees. One building is reserved for tourists, but as soon as one of these rooms is empty, a family member moves in, bringing a TV along of course.

We spent a lot of time talking with Pina, who actually manages the place and takes care of several children of friends and family members. She gave us many insights on the island, on the Tapati Rapa Nui and on the people and their culture. Without her many explanation, we would not have understood many of the things we noticed but were not able to decipher. It was always a great fun talking to her.

As in many budget places, the Residencial was a great place to meet people from all corners of the world. There we befriended a couple from Santiago, Macarena and Gonzalo, who are spending their honeymoon on the island, fantastic people! Gonzalo, a lawyer who works at the Ministry of Economics, has an enormous knowledge of European history and politics. Besides that, he took an immense effort speaking slowly and clearly to us so we were able to spend endless hours discussing various issues and learning about Chile. His wife, Macarena, was granted a scholarship for a PhD in Washington, DC, so both are going to spend the next four years in the USA and are now very ambitiously working on their English.

We also met Jerome or Jeronimo, as he enjoys introducing himself: a Dutch man of Indonesian origins, who seems to be in his early fifties but is actually 68 and has traveled every corner of the world! He was a most valuable source of recommendation and entertaining stories.

Given the prices in restaurant, we have cooked every single meal ourselves and no restaurant on the island could produce such tasty dishes. So Maracena & Gonzalo, Jerome and us cooked up the storm every evening often together with the family and eat together on the big table outside.

On the last evening, we met again Atariki, a young man who spends most of his time on the Chilean mainland and returns Rapa Nui for the summer. We had originally met him at the Tapati horse race. We were hiding under the same tree from the merciless sun when we picked up a conversation. He turned out to be an expert on using camera and explained a lot of features of our camera we had not discovered. We had promised to get in touch and finally on the last evening, we asked Pina to call him and we were really happy when he dropped by.

So for a week we lived like a big happy family without the negative aspects of such a life, since we all went our own way after that.

After a few days on Rapa Nui, it was time to visit what we had actually come to see, the legendary Moai. There are many places where these amazing statues that seem to stare into the distance can be found, but five locations are truly spectacular.

Ahu Tahai is only a short hike from the village with three restored Ahu, as the platforms that support the Moai are called. There you can see a Moai whose eyes were replaced, the only one on the island. To visit all other sites, you need to be more mobile. We tried our luck with various agencies, in vain. On a weekend during the high season plus the Queen Elisabeth calling port, the place was cleaned out of rental cars. Luckily, we finally managed to rent a quad for two days.

Riding our new toy, we set out to Rano Raraku in the east of Rapa Nui, the quarry where all the Moai were carved from the volcanic stone. We wandered through the amazing setting of semi-finished and half buried statues scattered around the green slope of this volcano. It was dead quiet and the sun was setting on their distinct stony faces. One of the heads was tilted like trying to catch the last ray of the disappearing sun. Having this mystic place only for us was an unforgettable moment, equaling watching the sunrise over Machu Picchu.

Then we went over to Ahu Tongariki, right next to the volcano with no less than 15 Moai lined up on the largest Ahu ever built. A Tsunami in 1960 caused a lot of damage but a Japanese company financed the restoration of this ancient ceremonial site in 1990.

Ahu Akivi, in the middle of the island, is particularly special because its seven Moai are the only ones that face the sea. But as all Moai, they overlook the site of an ancient village.

In the far north of the island, Ahu Nau Nau features the perfectly chiseled faces of five Moai with a white sandy beach as a backdrop and palm trees all around it. We guess this description needs no further commenting! A hundred meters away from it is Ahu Atue Huki, a single Moai that the anthropologist Thor Heyerdhal and a group of islanders propped up in nine days without any help of modern day machinery.

Last but not least, we visited the other star attraction of Rapa Nui, the Orongo Ceremonial Village up on rim of the crater of volcano Ranu Kau, in the southernmost part of the island. This was the place of a ceremony that became known as the “Birdman Cult”. A few houses made of flat pieces of stone, where the men lived during that ceremony, have been restored. There, the leaders of all clans met each year. The main goal was to retrieve the first egg of a certain bird that nested on a tiny island just off the cliffs. Whoever got the first egg and brought it back to the ceremonial village was considered the leader for that year. This culture initially ran partly parallel to the Moai culture, but later on replaced it.

However, the main attraction is the sweeping view from the crater rim. The lagoon inside the crater looks like a swamp, intercepted by tiny patches of grass, while the steep slopes of the crater are covered with very green grass. All this with the ocean in the background, we can very well understand why this place was chosen to for this annual meeting.

We have only been here for one week but keep meeting the same people when shopping in the village or going to the festival. Giving that the island has only 3.600 residents, this is not a surprise. A lot more horses, not less than 5.000 of them, roam the streets and every bit of the countryside.

The local population has the typical Polynesian look and is extremely attractive. The men are rather tall and grow their hair long which then is either tied into a ponytail or a bun high up on the head, often decorated with feathers. The fame of the beautiful and graceful women has long ago reached the rest of the world and yes, they do walk the streets with a Hibiscus flower behind their ear! So while this typical stereotype of Polynesians seems to be true, one cannot avoid to see that specially people past their thirties look very well-fed, occasionally also children. Women have quite a few children and they start doing so very young.

All the residents of the island are bilingual and Rapa Nui is widely spoken. It seems to depend on the social background of the family to what extent. Few islanders speak good English, maybe because tourism is a rather new phenomenon.

The further development of tourism in Rapa Nui is determined by how many planes are heading towards the island. Until a few years ago, it was only a few planes per weeks during the high season and even less in the winter. Presently it is eight from Santiago de Chile and two from Papeete per week, with Lan Chile being the only carrier.

More and more cruise ships include Rapa Nui in their itinerary and park way outside the small harbor. From there, they ship their huge human cargo onto the island to see the famous Moai of Anakena, while enjoying a picnic at this out-of-the-world beach. During our stay it was the Queen Elisabeth with 1.800 passengers following this itinerary. Something in this dimension had never happened here. We were said that it is the first time that such a big cruise boat comes here, also apparently her last cruise before “retirement”.

Also big companies discover the island and make it the destination for incentive trips. We saw a huge jet of Abercombie & Kent, a Boeing 757, at the airport. The guests stayed here for 36 hours and were invited to see the festival. This is a new phenomenon for islanders who quickly adapt to these new trends.

For the time being, the impact of tourism seems relatively limited, even though talking to people who were there in the past, things are changing quickly: there are more and more cars; last year no mobiles could be seen, today a common sight…

The question is how long will the Easter Islands remain such genuine place and Tapati Rapa Nui such a genuine event? We have heard that next years festival may not be free of charge anymore. Also, how long will it be possible to pose with the athlete competing after the Triathlon or the Banana trunk race? Just as the Carnival in Gualayguachu, we are just lucky to have seen it so “unspoiled”!

We can only repeat how lucky and privileged we feel to be able to watch this unique festival! We try to see as many of the events as we can and each time we are thrilled anew. None was of the typical “hula hula” type so common for other Polynesian islands, but truly authentic. Oh, in case we have not mentioned it, every single performance of the festival is free of charge...

“Tau’a” and “Haka Pei” are the two most spectacular competitions in the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival in terms of endurance and courage.

Tau’a is a kind of triathlon that is held inside the crater of volcano Ranu Raraku. Fifteen young men, five from each of the three competing teams, first cross the lagoon inside that crater in small canoes made of reed. Once they struggle to the shore, they put a bundle of bananas around their neck weighing 21 kilograms. With that, they jog a complete loop around the lagoon. Once they drop their heavy load, they have to do another half loop to get to small floats made of reeds. On these, they have to swim across the lake again.

The event took place starting at 12:00 am, the hottest time of the day. There was quite a crowd, families and team members of the participants cheering in support, as well as good number of tourists. All were hiding under umbrellas, canopies or hats trying to hide from the scorching sun. The participants’ bodies are only covered by small loincloth and paint!

Haka Pei is the other activity that requires a lot of courage, since for this contest the young men have to slide down the steep slopes of volcano Maunga Pui on log cut from a banana tree about two meter longs. They simply sit on these long logs while sliding down unable to maneuver them whatsoever. The Haka Pei we watched was very special because it was recorded by Japanese TV and featured a Japanese participant. He is a very popular comedian in Japan with his own TV show. He was the center of all attention. Once he “landed” at the bottom the hill, he showed his bruised arms and gave interviews to the Japanese TV.

The carnival is the last but nevertheless an important competition, since each team can made extra points by convincing as many locals and tourists alike to join their parade through the village. Unfortunately, we leave the day before this event. We were told lot of crazy incidents and costumes about this event: for instance last year, a Rapa Nui guy paraded wearing nothing but a chicken slung on his shoulders!

The concept of this festival is that various families compete against each other in a number of contests, like dancing, singing, swimming, stone carving, producing artefacts, fishing, horseback riding and canoe racing. There are other activities that need to be described in more detail, because of their exotic and unique nature! The points won by each subgroup are added and at the end decide which group has won. This very group can claim the crown for its queen. The problem is to get families to participate because it is quite a financial burden on the family and requires at least three month of rehearsing.

There are two to three different events every day over a period of two weeks, intense for visitors and even more for the participants, because many of them take part in all three. Besides, the sun is relentless during the day and we could not even imagine what it means to perform strenuous physical activities in this heat.

The first competition we saw was a singing contest between three groups accompanied by short dances. The latter gave us a taste of things to come. Each group had to present three songs and was given points by experienced referees. We did not agree with the result and after asking locals of their opinion, we learned that the outcome of such competitions often depends on how well-liked and respected the family is in the community. Heidi was so thrilled by the kind of music presented that she rushed to buy a CD the next day, plus a short “Pareo”, the famous wrap -around cloth.

The dancing contest next day was a must see for us. Most have heard and read about the beautiful islanders and their sensual dancing. Those who think that it was only too easy to impress the men of the “Bounty” who, for so long, were deprived of worldly pleasure, think again! We were blown off our feet when we watched the first dancing competition. The famous hip-swinging and graceful arm movements of the female dancers are legendary, but we were equally impressed by the performance of the men. Their moves exhibit an immense physical energy and are not less erotic.

Dancing and singing contests in various forms are held every evening on the central stage of the festival during these two weeks. Each of the three groups gets to perform four evenings with the groups taking turns. At these daily singing and dancing contests, they feature different kinds of music, different kind of dresses and dancers & singers of different ages, all equally amazing. One can only guess how much preparatory work has gone into preparing this festival!

In the museum in Rapa Nui, the diligent visitors can learn everything they have always wanted to know about this particular Polynesian culture, but were afraid to ask... Here you find answers or at least theories to who the people were that created these unique statues called “Moai”. Why were they put up and how? What led to their destruction?

Around 500 BC, people who originally lived on the Solomon Islands and on the islands between them and Tonga & Samoa, set sail in their big canoes on a great colonisation adventure to what is today Tahiti, Marquesas and the Cook Islands. From there, around 400 AD, they set sails again, this time in different directions: the Easter Islands, and later Hawaii and New Zealand.

Hotu Matu’a was the chief of the first group to colonise the island and became its first kings. His six sons created the main Mata or tribes that formed the local society. These Mata divided into Ure or groups of families. This society was definitely hierarchic: tribes of high social status lived in the western part, those of lower status in the eastern part of the island.

The Moai and the huge ceremonial centres that surrounded them were constructed to represent the power, prestige and organisational capacity of the clan, but also to honour the ancestors. All except one Moai face inland and thus clearly indicate that they were meant to oversee the daily activities of the islanders.

Those Moai were carved in quarries with simple stone tools and then moved to their Ahu, the platform where the Moai was put on. The question how these huge statues were transported involves 7 different theories: legend says the Moai walked there, whereas scientists basically see sleds and tree trunks as the means of transport.

The highest Moai is about 10 meters, but one found in the quarry was 21 meters high. However, this Moai was never moved to its Ahu. There are hundreds of Moai on the island, but the vast majority of them were never finished and never left the quarry.

Several theories stress the fact that transporting those Moai on tree trunks led to a complete deforestation of the island. This resulted in famine and a war between clans in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. During this time, all Moai were toppled. Since they protected all family activities and the territory, their destruction meant to diminish the power of the very Ure.

After the destruction of the Moai, another cult developed: the birdman ritual: men were competing against each other to become the leader of their clan for one year. The last part of the competition consisted in searching for a certain bird egg, thus the name given to the winner. This cult survived until the arrival of catholic missionaries.

The restoration of the Moai started in the 1960s when the Ahu were reconstructed and many of the Moai erected. Most statues were made of tufa, except the eyes. The Moai found in the quarry had no eye sockets, which means these were added once the stature arrived at its place or even after it is erected. But there are also others that were put up, but never had eyes, so-called “sleeping Moai”.

Only one of these eyes was found. There are some statutes were the eyes were added in the process of restoration, but even then they were stolen and had to be cemented into the face in order to survive modern day pilferages.

Another fascinating product of this culture were wooden tablets with engraved symbols representing names, dates and activities. Unfortunately, the meaning of those tablets was lost, when the few people who were able to create them were taken away as slaves and eventually with them died this skill and the knowledge.

The minutes we stepped off the plane, we knew we were on a tropical island: a steady wind blowing, the balmy temperature and the smell of the nearby sea … Everything was as it should have been!

Since it is the time of the annual Tapati Rapa Nui festival, we thought finding an accommodation would be difficult. We had checked the homepage of few hotels and knew we could find a room for 100 USD or more, but had no idea if there would be anything for less. So first thing, we started looking for accommodation. At the airport, owners of small hostels or residenciales offer their service showing off their folders with photos and other information. After 5 minutes we decided to stay at Residencial Petero Atamu, a quiet place where we could sit outside and with kitchen use.

We decided to take our time settling down in our new home since we had one week to discover Rapa Nui, whereas the majority of tourists only spend two or three days here.

On our first day we only checked out Hanga Roa, the only settlement on the island, leaving the highlights for the days to come. The first thing that surprised us was how rural the place was, small houses in the midst of lush vegetation, horses grazing in front of the church and less tourists than we had expected: we did not see any tour agency, there are no touts trying to sell you this restaurant or that art shop… There are many restaurants for such a small village, but hotels are almost invisible. Also surprising was that even in the highest season and during the festival, lots of accommodation is available.

Of course we tracked down strategic places like tourist information, the venue of the festival, Internet café, “supermercado” … The latter itself is quite an experience. It looks more like a storage than a supermarket! In comparison, European hard discounters are amazingly well presented, organized and clean. Plus, prices for food are simply crazy!!!

A few things caught immediately our attention: the surf in the harbour area is great so the bay is full of young surfers trying to catch a wave. And amongst the youngsters in town, Heidi could spot what she called “young island beauties” like in the film “Mutiny on the Bounty”, Gilles did not though. He has another six days to open his eyes!

Our farewell to Argentina was appropriate, a spontaneous party with Argentineans at our hostel. We sampled the food and wine people had bought touring the bodegas that day and everybody shared whatever they had. We were particular proud to be able to follow the conversation in Spanish about any random topic.

After more than 6 months in Latino America, it was time to leave and we felt a bit nostalgic but also curious to learn about new countries. The next morning, while we were waiting at Mendoza’s bus station for the bus to Santiago de Chile, our sentimental feelings were abruptly interrupted by an ugly incident.

Heidi was sitting next to her day-bag, patiently waiting for the delayed bus, when suddenly a bundle of keys was dropped right in front of her. As any person would do, she jumped up, picked up the key and told the guy he had lost them. His sly look and weird reaction, he did not say thank you, immediately rang the alarm bells. She turned around and her bag was gone. A “classico”!

We were sent to the police office right at the bus station, where two officers were interviewing a crying Chilean lady. A bag with all her clothes was stolen while she was buying her ticket. Luckily, Gilles had both passports with him, so we could keep on travelling. Otherwise it would have turned into a nightmare, since almost all our trans-Pacific flights are already booked!

There was no cash in the bag, and since Gilles had planed the travel well, we could cancel the stolen credit cards within less than ten minutes. But Heidi had her glasses in her bag, spare contact lenses, sunglasses and lots of medication. So the thief gained nothing, but we lost a lot!

We decided to leave on the next bus because the police only took our name and eMail address. We not even got a piece of paper that we reported the incident, so we decided not to waste any more time and leave as we had planned.

On the bus we wondered if we could have avoided it, but the answer seemed clearly no to us: you cannot permanently be on alert especially when travelling for one year. Maybe we had turned a little too confident, after six months travel through Latin America without any such incidents. We knew that major bus stations are one of the classical places where this can happen.

The bus ride itself to Santiago was pleasant, since it was a “Cama Suite”. But crossing the border to Chile was really tedious: we had to wait about 1.5 hour since it is standard procedure that all bags are taken of all the buses crossing and x-rayed. Another one is that after going through immigration the whole busload of passengers is assembled in the room with the big x-ray machine. When a bag is considered suspicious by the officials, the owner must identify himself and open the bag, with everybody watching. It is a pretty humiliating affair. We guess they want to communicate that Chile is very serious about bringing any kind of fruits, vegetables or meat into the country to protect its agriculture.

So we hardly had any time to discover Santiago de Chile, especially because we had to buy some of the things Heidi had lost before going to the pricy Pacific Islands. In Santiago, we stayed at the huge, resort-like “La Casa Roja”, an old mansion turned into a traveller hostel. It offers everything you ask for: pool, gigantic kitchen, garden, lots of common areas, some of them with crystal chandeliers.

On the next day, we caught a plane to Easter Islands, a 5.5 hours flight above the Pacific, which was easy and comfortable.