Stoney-faced in Rapa Nui
EASTER ISLAND: Geographic isolation comes at a great cost; both environmentally and culturally.
Ever wanted to get away from it all, to really get away? Well, the one place on the planet that is furthest from human habitation is Rapa Nui, the Polynesian name for Easter Island. Apart from its famous statues (known as moai), the 6,000 inhabitants and a steady stream of tourists, the nearest thing to a permanent civilisation is almost 2,000 kilometres away to the west in Pitcairn Island, or roughly the same distance east to Chile, which has governmental jurisdiction of the island.
Such isolation has its challenges. Lots of things have to be flown in (there is no port or ship loading facility), and this costs lots, as does maintaining basic infrastructure and providing essential services. Most roads are not paved, but are dusty rock-strewn tracks with potholes as big as tractor tyres. Packs of mostly friendly dogs either lie about in the molten humidity or bark wildly. Come to think of it, most of the humans on the island, including the tourists, do too.
It’s thought Polynesians discovered the island over 1,000 years ago. In its heyday, an estimated 1,100 moai dotted the small island, only 15 miles across at its widest point. But centuries of tribal warfare, continuous resource depletion and, according to scientists, rats introduced by early European contact, have all combined to leave much of the island stripped bare of any forestation, and many of the statues desecrated. This means there are few trees for shade and a landscape more barren and infertile than most deserts.
Apart from the free-standing monoliths at various stages of construction on the slopes of Rano Raraku (the volcanic quarry where the statues were carved), most other moai you see today have been re-erected by locals, usually with the help of aid organisations or philanthropic initiatives, to not only preserve an integral cultural legacy, but continue to attract tourists as well.
And to make things more challenging for the local environment, there was a fire in 2022 that burned almost 250 acres. Many moai were charred; the already bare landscape left in a blackened, smouldering state. Then there’s the impact of climate change, with rising sea levels, storm surges and waves starting to erode coastlines where many of the UNESCO-protected moai are precariously perched. This includes the three main archeological sites—Tongariki, Anakena and Akahanga.
The combined effect means the island’s economy hangs in the balance given its heavy reliance on income from the 100,000 annual tourists who come mainly to marvel at the moai.
In and around the few settlements, a common mode of local transport is horseback, and their piles of manure left fermenting on the roads lend the air the scent of a stable. That’s why you need to take a torch with you at night because the street lights don’t always work, and you never know what you might tread on after dark.
Peak season is from December to March when the trade winds abate slightly and the UV meter drops from Extreme to High. True, you can scuba dive or ride a wave or hike a hill or burn some skin while here, but you can do these elsewhere, probably cheaper and likely much better.
For us, Rapa Nui was a very convenient stopover, a neat midway rest stop on our long haul home across the Pacific from Santiago to Sydney via Tahiti. It’s a stopover, not a destination, which you could probably say about a lot of Asian or Middle Eastern cities (Bangkok and Hong Kong; Dubai and Abu Dhabi), but they are stopovers you could reasonably revisit, and Rapa Nui is definitely not.