Rapa Nui

Easter Island, also known as Isla de Pascua or Rapa Nui, is one of the most isolated places in the world. This Chilean island is located in the middle of the Pacific ocean, at around 3.800 km from the continental Chile, at the same latitude as Valparaíso. The nearest point to the west is Tahiti, on the French Polynesia, at around 4.200 km. Due to this compulsory oceanic isolation, the island is also known as 'the navel of the world' (or 'Te pito o te henua' in Rapa Nui language). To reach the island, the best is to take the LAN Chile flight that covers the route Santiago - Tahiti, which stops for 30 minutes in the island every two days.

Easter Island is around 12 km long by 24 km wide, and is inhabited by 4.000 or 4.500 people (permanent population), who mainly live in Hanga Roa, the main town of the island. The 80% of the territory is a national park, administered by Conaf (the Chilean Forest National Corporation). There are around 1000 moais (monolithic human figures carved from rock) on the island. Most of them are laid down on earth due to tsunamis or wars between clans that happened more than a century ago. The weight of the moais may exceed several hundreds of tons and there are different theories to explain how they could be carved from the only single rocky area in the island (the Rano Raraku volcano), rise them up and move them several kilometers through the island to reach their final destinations. It is believed that moais were built to represent the chiefs of the different tribes in the island. They were sculpted when the chiefs were still in life but only on their death the moais were carried to their final location, put on a stand up position and their eyes placed.

The white color of the eyes was achieved using a typical coral of the area with a human brain shape. At the center of the eyes, in black color, a stone of obsidian was set. It was only at that time, when the spirit of the deceased was entering the moai and staying there forever, to protect his tribe. Moais were always placed looking to the center of the island, except the ones of the ahu Akivi, which are the only ones looking to the sea (it's not really known why, but there are different theories about it.)

In the following video, you can watch the main sights of the island, with the exception of the Rano Kao volcano: