Easter Island (Rapa Nui in the indigenous language) is the most remote island in the world.  It is 2500 miles from Santiago.  Around 700 AD a Polynesian king migrated to the Rapa Nui  from islands near the Cook Islands.  For 1000 years afterward their population grew to around 13-15k people.  Easter Island has become a classic example of overpopulation and overuse of the island’s resources.  By the time, the Europeans arrived in late 1700’s, the population was down to around 3000 and 120 years later due to Peruvian slave raids, European diseases, civil war between the different groups and lack of resources, the indigenous population was down to 111.

Today the island’s only industry is tourism as people come to hear the story and see the magnificent Maoi statues.  These statues were carved out of stone from one of the 3 volcanoes and transported to various sites to honor the dead (higher-class only).  The largest weighed about 80 tons.  We toured various parts of the island for 2 days learning the stories & history of these people as well as learning about their manufacturing techniques.

It is interesting that tourism only evolves around the Maoi and the history of the island.  The island only has two beaches – only one of them is significant and other water activities are limited.  I would expect that the average stay for a visitor is 2-3 days.  The twice daily planes from Santiago are generally filled and because NASA extended the only runway to stretch across the whole narrow part of the island (to serve as a space shuttle emergency landing way), the planes arriving are large Dreamliners.

Our first visit was a celebration site where the island tribe leaders met for 3-4 days annually to hold the “birdman” contest.  A leader or their surrogate would compete each spring for the title by climbing down the steep cliffs, swimming out to a local island & returning with the egg (strapped to their forehead) of a migrating bird.  It was clearly a difficult task.