Does anyone Live on Easter Island

The Easter Island Message Board

Is it possible to move to Easter Island? The Easter Island is a wonderful island. It is not, however, the simplest place to earn a livelihood. They earn their livelihood by working in stores, eating out, buying their craft or providing tourist guidance. Anything on the island is costly. That is because they are very dependent on the land for almost everything - from clothing to meals - and can only get to the island by air.

If you don't get enough cash on the island, the trouble I think you'll find a way to feed yourself.

Like the Easter Island became the vacation goal of the 21. century Travel

The Easter Island postal station - a six-metre-long, wind-protected hut - is the place where visitors receive their trophies pass. We get the more appealing model with the fluffy navy edge of three moon sculptures for one buck. When the receptionist, wearing ultra-short pants, puts the inks on our pages, I realize that what most folks know about this island in Polynesia could be typed in a room of about the same area.

Telling them that I was here, in one of the most remote places in the world, between Chile (3,700 km east) and Tahiti (4,000 km west), their inquisitiveness was forgotten. The Easter Island, or Rape Nui (also the name of the mother tongue and the people), is only 63 square kilometers large, has about 5,000 inhabitants and is surrounded by a legend.

I came here to try to get under your feet, and also because I am hearing that the tourist industry is undergoing changes here. This year' s big novelty is the opening of the city' s first luxurious resort and I have also seen a new trip that is more focused on the island' s people' way of living and teaches them how to go fishing.

You only need 10 min on the island to clear up one of the most frequent misunderstandings. Not only the few photogenous ones that can be seen in the illustrated volumes are included in the sculptures of Moais. There are actually about 900 of these austere, large-headed characters spread all over the island. They were thrown out at one point, around 1500 AD, by the Rapa Nui men like a plant line.

Today, the island looks as if someone has brought a clipper to its slopes, only occasionally left clumps of mainly Australian importing eucalypts. It is theory that the old residents cut down all the tree trunks to carry their ever more challenging Moais. It has very stringent building regulations and there are no chains, except for a bench.

This older landlord, who comes from the south of Chile, is still foggy when he talks about a visit with his old lady Rapa Nui in Santiago more than 40 years ago. In 2007, the island's tourist industry took an upturn with the opening of Explora Laodge, 8 km outside the city. This new 75-room Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa is the first high-end downtown resort and I'm amazed it fits in so well.

His unobtrusive look is influenced by the old Rapa Nui apartments, which someone called my igloo but with overgrown weed. It was one of six homes inhabited by a community in 2010 that was claiming the area. On the island there is not a singular "local" view on it, because there is not a singular one.

Following a protracted legal dispute, it was decided that the property has the right to work for 35 years and repay its investments, then the business is transferred to a Rapa Nui trust. What is fascinating about Easter Island is that it has a millennia-old past on the one side and a remarkably recent one on the other.

Hugo, my travel leader, told me that his 87-year-old great-grandmother lived in a caves. They and many of the island' s inhabitants also recall their bewilderment when they first saw an airplane circulating above them, making kids run away in awe. Nowadays, every Easter Island receives a daily airplane that climbs up to three times during the high seasons.

Pre-departure reports tell of a way of living that was recorded in the past with a horse outside club. Even though humans still go on horseback - and thousand of them wander around these gold meadows - automobiles and motorcycles are by far the favoured means of transportation.

For more information about how local residents live, hundreds of millions of miles from all over the world, one of the most extraordinary providers in the city is a business named Ancestral touring. Moi is an open-minded Rapa Nui with a grey moustache and long dark coat. He conducts adventure trips with his just as kind chilenean woman Dayan.

Moi, like many of his fellow students, learnt to work both the sea and the countryside while staying at home on wet summer evenings to practice craftmanship. "I half wait for him to tear his shirts, unveil a company emblem and then cross the Pacific, but instead he goes directly into an outbreak of the Maori Haka's Rana Nui take.

Most of the island's coast is cliffy, but on a bright summer days it has some picturesque sands. I' m aware that the fauna on the island is quite small, but there are many strange and beautiful things to discover off the coast. There are 15 sculptures of mai standing directly behind us, which watch over us like a bodyguard.

Unfortunately, many of the other Moais are now lying face down or fractured. The history of Easter Island is a dramatic tale of a civilization that is famous for turning against itself. The battle between the two competing clans is the cause that all the mai were beaten to the floor. In a few short get-togethers I see the island as a good example of the problems of evolution.

We have the complication of the fusion of tourism vs. community living, the difficulties in controlling migration, the risks of looting our planet's riches and the question of whether we have eco-hotels but have to travel to get here. In the framework of the contest for queens of carnivals, two native women will organize their own dancing show with an array of female performers.

At least 300 persons are here practicing their routine and hope to make their candidates proud. While there are many places in the city where you can see a typical dancing show, it is a completely different feeling when you see a diverse fellowship participating and small kids floating around the sides copy their ancients.

Everyone I talk to on the island is very welcome and very proud of their people. And with it, he voluntarily gives me a moonlight drive around the mai on his pon. To see the impressive contours of the statue without anyone being around is definitely a high point of the journey. However, then, like a young Rapa Nui, Maxi acknowledges that he usually travel quicker.