Easter Island / Isla de Pascua / Rapa Nui
Three names for the same Island! Easter Island in English, Isla de Pascua in Spanish and Rapa Nui in the native language. All refer to this mysterious, isolated little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about a 4-hour flight from Santiago, Chile.
Flight to Easter Island
As far as I’m aware the only airline flying to Easter Island is LAN airlines. Our return flight was about 180,000 CLP which is quite a reasonable price. Even though the island is a part of Chile, LAN still treats it as an international flight, which means the usual 2-hour check-in. However, we were able to take a 5-litre water container with us and some bottles of wine in our hand luggage. Also, we took as much food as possible between the 3 of us since we heard that food there is very expensive. We had a 23kg suitcase or “foodcase” with us, which lasted for about one week.
(US$1 = $515 Chilean Pesos – August 2010)
Accommodation
We found good, cheapish (for island prices) accommodation at “Apina Tupuna” in Hanga Roa. A double room was 24,000 CLP per night including breakfast. Make sure to contact them in advance though.
Sights on Easter Island
The two main sites, Rano Raraku and Orongo, which make up the national park Rapa Nui, are the ones where you need to pay an entrance fee. All the other sites are free of charge. For foreigners that means the quite impressive amount of 30,000 CLP. Once you have entered one site, you have 5 days to visit the other one and admission is only granted once.
Rano Raraku
Now, this one is an incredible sight! This volcano was the “birth place” of the Moais. When you enter the park, it almost feels like it is just a break time for the statue builders as there are Moais both finished and unfinished everywhere! You will find the Moais in every state of their building process, from still “attached to the volcano” to “waiting for dispatch”. The path to the left leads up to the crater lake (with more Moais scattered around the lake!) and the path to the right feels like the main work shop. From Rano Raraku you can also look down to “Tongariki”, the 15 Moais. Take your time while wandering around here, we spent about 2 hours admiring this site.
See our photo of a Moai close up
Have you been to Easter Island?
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I still have not been there, but definitely planning a trip in October. So thanks for this article ,-)
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