The 6-hour flight from Santiago to Easter Island was aboard a Dreamliner, a much larger plane than what we had flown before. It had two parallel rows between three rows of three seats. Although we had economy seats, one was left vacant, making it not such a tight fit.

A little history: Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is an island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. It is most famous for its nearly 1,000 monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapa Nui people. It is believed that Easter Island's Polynesian inhabitants arrived on Easter Island sometime near 1200 AD and created a thriving and industrious culture. However, land clearing for cultivation and the introduction of the Polynesian rat led to gradual deforestation. When Europeans arrived in 1722, the island's population was 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants. European diseases and Peruvian slave raiding expeditions, however, depleted the population to a low of 111 in 1877. Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888. In 1966, the Rapa Nui were granted Chilean citizenship.

We landed on Easter Island on one of the longest runways in the world… it was originally commissioned by NASA to be an emergency landing strip for the space shuttle. We disembarked from the rear of the plane on a roll-up staircase, retrieved our luggage, and took a shuttle to our hotel in Hanga Roa, the only city on Easter Island. After a brief settling into our rooms, we got back on the shuttle to visit some archeological sites on the southwestern point of the island. Vinapu exhibits extraordinary stonemasonry consisting of large, carefully fitted slabs of basalt. The site at Orongo is a stone village and ceremonial center at the southwestern tip of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). It consists of a collection of low, sod-covered, windowless, round-walled buildings near a large volcanic caldera called Rano Kau.

That evening, we had a nice, provided dinner at a local restaurant as we watched a beautiful sunset, looking forward to seeing Easter Island’s famous Moai statues the following day.

Quick Photo Links: Vinapu | Orango | Rano Kau