Raphael Kessler

Easter Island, Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua, whatever you want to call it, is the world's most isolated population centre. The nearest inhabited place is Pitcairn island where half a dozen people and a few penguins live. It is a part of Chile although it is 3,700 kilometres (2,294 miles) from South America and 4,050 kilometres (2,511 miles) from Tahiti, essentially placing it slap bang in the middle of nowhere. It is also a very small place only one hundred and eighty square kilometres. 

The Rapa Nui people who lived on the island believed they were the only people in the world, which is quite understandable, when you're there and can't see anything else on any horizon. Their religion praised both ancestors and the god Make Make. They made petroglyphs (rock carvings) and statues to honour their deities. Some of the petroglyphs and statues now on the island are reproductions like those in the photo below.

When there was a dispute and the ruling class were overthrown, all the Moai (statues) were knocked down and many of the Ahus (stone platforms on which the Moai stood) were destroyed. As a result all the Moais now standing were re-erected and sometimes repaired or replaced. Many of the Ahus and Moai are still in disrepair, although some simply need re-erecting like the face down Moai in the first photo, many however broke at the neck (photo 2), requiring repair as well. The volcanic rock from which the Moai were carved is not particularly tough, so the weather and salt spray creates another threat to the long term survival of these unique, impressive monoliths. 

The sunrise at Tongariki, where there are fifteen huge Moai spread out along the two hundred metre long Ahu was lovely although it meant getting up very early.

All the Moai on the island face inland except for the seven at Ahu Akivi. Considering they are close to the centre of the island, they would be facing the sea whichever direction they pointed.

Some of the Moai have red topknots on (photos below), not hats any people suppose. These topknots supposedly represent the fashionable hairstyle of the time. Some of these topknots are more than two metres tall themselves, weighing several tonnes on their own.

The Moai almost totally encircle the entire island, most of them along the coast.

To give some scale this is me and one of the smaller Moai.

The quarry from where the Moai were originally hewn has some of the finest examples. The Moai were cut directly from the rock (photo 1), before being moved to finish off the carving and taken to the appropriate Ahu.  Some of the Moai are partially buried (photo 10) and others appear to have broken in transit, like El Gigante which was over twenty metres high.  In the middle of the volcanoe is an attractive lake with reed beds (photo 11). 

The sunsets on Easter Island were usually great, but the first sunset I saw on the island was absolutely phenomenal, with a blood red sky. Unfortunately we were not able to get to a good spot to get pictures of it, before it disappeared. In comparison to that one the following sunsets were not so spectacular, although I think you would agree from the pictures below they were still lovely.

The only bit of land one can see from the island is a couple of very small islands just off the coast. Once a year there was a competition where men would compete to rush down a near vertical cliff on the mainland before swimming to the near vertical pinnacle, shown below, collect the first tern's egg of the season and bring it back to the mainland intact to become birdman. Other than this accolade nobody is sure what the winner got.

Some kids are far too fortunate, when I was at school, I was lucky to get a school trip to Bath. These jammy Tahitian kids go for a school trip to Easter Island. They were a nice enough crowd though as they gave free impromptu Polynesian dance performances on the beach. They also fed a couple of folk we were hanging around with from their barbeque. Maybe they were sponsored by the tourist board of Tahiti.

It was funny to see where the Moai image would crop up, it was on the franks at the post office and just about any brochure. A couple of amusing examples were these advertisements for Coke and Ice Cream.