Easter Island Visitor information

Isle of Easter: tourism center

You can find many web sites on the web that deal with the topic of travelling to Easter Island. The Wikitravel is a travel guidebook that has been revised by a number of voluntary guides and they also have an Easter Island report (http://wikitravel.org/en/Easter_Iceland). Osterinsel-Stiftung also has a very useful website for visitors. There is also a good story of the island published so that prospective visitors can get a feeling for the island before they visit it.

Osterinsel Highlights | travel guides

The Easter Island, a isolated piece of Pacific vulcanic stone, felt like Polynesia. The island ers do not consider themselves Chileans, but Rapa Nui (the name of the island in the local tongue, probably Polynesians). It is a place of windswept, meagre meadows with few flowers, streams or flowers, lined by the huge mai.

Visitors will be stationed in the only city on Easter Island, Hanga Roa. Its small area (163.6 km²) makes it simple to discover by car, on foot or by bicycle. Some of the smooth, square faces of the mai are sitting erect or lying on the sides, partly half-finished.

One of my leaders, who was part of Rapa Nui's legacy (tip: it is the best guides), assisted me in exploring the island's cultural, historical and archaeological sites by giving me a clear idea of what was happening here. This abandoned stone pit was once a beehive of industrial activity. From the tenth to the seventeenth century, several hundred workmen and artisans formed the mai, which probably represents ancestor figurines by cutting tufa (composite ash) from the side of the craters.

It was thought that as the mai became more popular, several different classes began to make the greatest and most impressing mai. When my group approached the top of a hill, we came to a lying sculpture, the biggest mai ever found. In comparison to some of the weathered stationary mai, the mai, which have been left burried in the ground in the quarry, are much better conserved.

Why the stone quarries' rocks never made it to their coast platform (known as'ahu')? But while we were in the stone pit, my leader sketched others. After deforesting their lands to carry the sculptures, for example, it is believed that the Rapa Nui have exhausted their indigenous heritage, which has led to conflicts and famine.

One of the most impressive places of interest on the island was an example of moon graphite for me. A nave in the west with three quadratic poles is engraved into the rock on the breast of a mai in the mine. When I looked at the carving, my leader realized that the Rapa Nui were also a victim of colonisation.

The game horse that grazes along the trail that branches off from the stone pit is a hardly signposted trail bounded by the round hills of dying lamcra. During the one hours walk on the so-called "Moai Path" you can see even more of the Easter Island's beauty: field horsemen browse the plain, and only a run-down farmhouse, deep cliffs or redish bald layers of soil open up the seemingly never-ending leaf.

There are only large groups of Easter Island tree groups in Hanga Roa, where they have been reseed. During my stroll I found out that we were tracking down part of the road system of the Rafa Nui when they were transporting the mai to the river hut. One archeologist of the Raffae nui legacy, Sergio Rapu, postulates (and later proved) that this can be taken as such.

Teams of individuals can swing or'run' the mai 100 meters (328 ft) a days with a rop. It is dotted with sculptures that were left and left on their way. Situated on the southern shore of the island, this 200 metre high ahu consists of enormous rocks and looks like an enormous arid barrier.

Mount Rano Raraku Volcano provides support for 15 braided moonflies, which stand side by side against the background of the volcano. One cannot help but admire the inventiveness and craftsmanship of Rapa Nui, which were present in an essential prehistoric civilization. You will find that at Tongariki as at all bars, the face of Mount Moi.

Rapa Nui thought that the sculptures, pervaded by their ancient ghosts, were protecting the islanders from the threat of the sea. Like every Easter Island hoo, the Tongariki mai were brought back into their erect positions during the twentieth centuries (work was finished here in 1996). It is thought that when the island went into conflict, Clan' Moi fell.

On the Ahu Tongariki mai you can see the sign of damages. A few moais, in other parts of the island, stayed where they were. Because of the closeness to the stone pit, most humans continue to Rano Raraku to Ahu Tongariki. It is said to be the place where the first Polynesians came land.

Rapa Nui like to swim in protected basins, but I really did enjoy the balsamic shoals. Ahu Nau Nau, a group of mai, which is characterized by its pukaoos. Made of a bright scarlet stone named scaria, they give an additional state to a mai.

If a pukao is present, a mai becomes a chieftain or a king. Both of these houses are within walking distance from Hanga Roa. The seven mai of Ahu Akivi are the only ones in the interior that are oriented towards the ocean.

For this reason they have purchased a cargo of legend, which includes the notion that it could be aggresive mai that warn against outcasts at sea. The Ahu Tahai is noteworthy because it has the only wetland with renovated eye - white seaweed with a scarlet eye. In a south-western foothills, a huge extinguished caldera surrounds a fresh watershed, one of the most important springs on the island.

The island' s inhabitants cultivated strawberry and paddy before the area was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Just a brief stroll from the craters, the town of Orongo shows the development of the Rapa Nui religions. Once the inhabitants of the island had ceased to believe in the mai, they adopted the "birdman" religious belief.

Though Easter Island is open to international guests, it is possible to get an impression of the Rapa Nui civilization if you are looking for it. Here you can see the locals participating in the islandýs major sports - the open canoe race in Polish stil. When you have a little bit of free walking you can take a half days hike to the highest point of Easter Island, Maunga Terevaka.

They were nothing more than small points on the coast, overpowered by the sea of sea of cobalt that stretched to the sky. Though the stylish Explora Hotel provides a great set of hiking opportunities, I recommend you stay in Hare Noi, 15 minutes on foot from the city. With more character than other Easter Islands, it has a relaxing shop feeling.

Easter Island can be explored all year round, provided you don't object to a few cloudy nights.