Day 16: Rapa Nui

Today we did the whole east side of the island where all the main sites are. It’s just astounding to think about the amount of technology needed to carve the Moai statues into the side of the mountain, (and they had the assembly line hundreds of years before Henry Ford), release them, transport with cranes (advanced for the time), put finishing touches on them, and then move them miles and miles across the land. It’s hard to wrap your mind around it.

Rapa Nui’s airport is the most remote in the world. The closest airport is over 2600 kilometers away, but there are no flights there. You have to fly through Santiago Chile.

It’s a baby tourist industry. I just assumed that because I know many people who have gone there that it was more like Hawaii or Jamaica….but a lot of the systems are not ready for prime time. In the winter it’s not hard to find a place to stay, but in the summer, there aren’t enough hotels and restaurants and coffee shops and rental car companies and guides. It takes a lot of infrastructure. And yet, everyone we have interfaced with has gone above and beyond to be kind to us…our AirBnB host gushes his thankfulness that we came. (Even though we changed our dates because of the delayed flight. “No problem.”) The residents greet us warmly on the street with their version of “Aloha” (Iorana)