Here’s a place that I particularly like: Easter Island, there’s a lot to say about this mysterious and captivating island…

Moai on Easter Island

Easter Island is probably the most isolated place in the world. It is located in the Pacific Ocean, 3,700 km from Chile, the country on which it depends, and 4,000 km from Tahiti. The nearest land is Pitcairn, located 2,000 km away. Its precise coordinates are 109° West latitude and 27° South longitude. Rapanui is spoken there, a Polynesian language distant cousin of Tahitian. Moreover, the natives have passed it down from generation to generation for more than 15 centuries and it is still spoken by 2/3 of the population. Rapa Nui is also the name of the island in Rapanui language.

Easter Island and the Rapa Nui

This small piece of land measuring 117 km² is a volcanic island. There are three volcanoes of which a priori none is still active, these are the Rana Kano, the Rana Roratka and Puakatike. It is a bare, arid land because it is swept almost permanently by very violent winds. These unfavorable climatic conditions prevent the island from having significant vegetation. Since Easter Island is one of the most isolated places in the world, this may explain the development of such a unique culture.

It owes its name to the day of its discovery by the first European visitors: Easter Day 1722. It was the seat of an ancient civilization, the Rapa nuis, who had left, here and there, piles of immense sculptures stone called “Moaï”. There are more than 600 Moai on Easter Island, some of which reach 10 m in height.

No one really knows with certainty where the first inhabitants of Easter Island came from, why they decided to settle there, how frequent their dealings with foreigners may have been, or what really made them motivated to carve and erect their grandiose stone monuments. We also do not know how they managed to transport these enormous blocks of stone, of considerable weight, from the extraction sites to their current locations – Probably with the help of tree trunks. massively cut down, which would explain the almost total absence of trees on the island…

Easter Island is a real open-air museum…

Come discover this island!