{"id":3030,"date":"2014-05-21T20:46:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T01:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=3030"},"modified":"2025-05-05T11:19:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T16:19:31","slug":"rapa-nui-or-easter-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/2014\/05\/21\/rapa-nui-or-easter-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapa Nui or Easter Island?"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 21, 2014<\/p>\n

\u00a0It seems appropriate that I landed on Easter Island on a Chilean national holiday, one that celebrates the valor (rather than the success) of the Chilean navy, since it was that navy that claimed Easter Island in the mid 1880s. Surprisingly, the first European to visit arrived on Easter, 1722–and he was Dutch.\u00a0\u00a0Among my other predecessors was Captain Cook, who stopped here on his way to destiny in the Sandwich Islands.<\/p>\n

The human history of the island seems pretty grim–even before the Europeans, with settlement from Polynesia somewhere between the 4th<\/sup>\u00a0and 12th<\/sup> century, overpopulation and environmental degradation preceeded the European discovery.\u00a0\u00a0As it is, the nearly 6000 Rapa Nui are part of Chile, attached to Valparaiso, nearly 2500 miles (and two time zones) away.\u00a0\u00a0To put that in perspective, that\u2019s the distance from Sao Paulo to Santiago, but the great mystery to me is not the statues (more on them in a minute–and for the next two days), but why no European state claimed the island before Chile.<\/p>\n

I got in around midday, with enough time to wander nearby,\u00a0\u00a0where there \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>are both ceremonial platforms (ahu) and the carved statues (moai) within strolling distance.\u00a0\u00a0The island seems lush, with palm trees (many of the species are replaced, but a few were saved) despite the volcanic soil.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve got tours the next two days, and I\u2019m expecting to be taken to the quiescent volcano.\u00a0\u00a0The island is apparently the top of a 9000+ foot mountain that has erupted.<\/p>\n

The number of visitors is limited to around 220 newcomers per day, with one flight from Santiago, and apparently another that goes from Tahiti to Easter Island to Santiago a few days a week.\u00a0\u00a0The hotels are owned by local people; although Chile has welcomed foreign direct investment (and, in the case of the vineyard yesterday, foreign ownership\/operations), there apparently is none on the island.\u00a0\u00a0Hence, there\u2019s no 5 star Hiltons or Marriotts.<\/p>\n

Besides the sightseeing and the food, there\u2019s fishing and snorkeling and scuba shops here, but watching the sun kiss the Pacific at dinner, this side \"\"<\/a>of the island catches the waves.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ll probably get to see the whole island on my full day tour tomorrow.<\/p>\n

I did get to watch the sunset through the clouds at a restaurant on a westward facing point. I had a local fish, called piki.\u00a0\u00a0Must be for picky eaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 21, 2014 \u00a0It seems appropriate that I landed on Easter Island on a Chilean national holiday, one that celebrates the valor (rather than the success) of the Chilean navy, since it was that navy that claimed Easter Island in the mid 1880s. Surprisingly, the first European to visit arrived on Easter, 1722–and he was … Continue reading “Rapa Nui or Easter Island?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fdib-latin-america-2014"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3030"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8502,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3030\/revisions\/8502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}