I know you’ve seen them before, these crazy little (actually quite large) elongated stone heads carved by some Polynesian natives a long time ago on some island in the middle of the pacific….Well, it’s Easter Island and the stone statues are “moai”…..The name “Easter Island” was given by the island’s first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday 1722, while searching for Davis or David’s island. Roggeveen named it Paasch-Eyland (18th century Dutch for “Easter Island”). The island’s official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means “Easter Island”.

The current Polynesian name of the island, Rapa Nui or “Big Rapa”, was coined after the slave raids of the early 1860s, and refers to the island’s topographic resemblance to the island of Rapa in the Bass Islands of the Austral Islands group.

It’s actually quite a ways from Lima as we had to fly Lima to Santiago, Chile, then spend 8hrs at Santiago airport to catch a 5hr flight to Easter Island….phew!!! Another long travel day (and night)…but we made it!!

We arrived on Easter Island around 1pm and were met by our hostel host to drive us back to the hostel. Easter Island is not that large (kinda reminded me of Koh Samui in Thailand) with a population of approx 4000 and the whole island can been seen in a day with a vehicle…we settled into our room and then went off to explore…the whole island is pretty much a national park with stone statues scattered all over, some destroyed during tribal wars, some restored by archaeologists and all quite large in stature…The guide books and Internet blogs said 3 days were needed to explore the whole island and it’s sights….we rented a scooter and did the whole thing in a day!!!

Needless to say, we had some spare time as we had planned to stay for 3 nights….unfortunately, on an island this size, spare time is not what you want!! Other than the main attractions (which we had already seen), there was not much else to do…The main town on the island (the only one) Hanga Roa has but one main drag with the usual tourist amenities, souvenir shops, a few pubs and restaurants and a number of tour agencies…all in about 4 blocks…once you’ve done the “strip” a few times, that’s it!!!

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A couple of things that stuck out during this visit (other than the amazing moais)….this town is expensive!!! I guess cause this island is in the middle of nowhere (some Polynesian called this the “belly button” of the world) and everything has to be flown in, the prices should be a little higher, but $100 cdn for lunch for 2 seems a little out of whack!! We stuck with makin our own sandwiches a few times…… and dogs…dogs everywhere!! Not sure where they originally came from, but the island is crowded with stray dogs just roaming the streets…most seem pretty friendly lookin for a hand out, but there are a few you gotta watch out for….

As usual, these are only a small sample of the pics I took. To upload them all to this blog would take weeks!!! So, if you wanna see some more (and they are pretty good), just give me a shout….

Easter Island done!! It’s time to move on to Santiago, Chile for a couple of days….