After flying accross nothing but ocean for five hours, the Boing 767 arrived at the airport with the code IPC, Mataveri International Airport, the world’s most remote airport.
All hotels provide transport from the airport and welcome their guests the Polynesean way with a flower necklace. Interestingly, this is not just a tourist attraction. Returning locals are greated that way as well.
The most famous attraction of Easter Island: large stone sculptures called Moai. This one has had its eyes restored by archaeologists. Usually, they have long gone missing.
View across the island north of Hanga Roa, the only town.
Another moai. What surprised me is that they look inland. I would have thought them to gaze out to the sea.
While there are paved roads, most are merely tracks. Hiking along them is regularly interrupted by cars stopping and their drivers asking if they can take you somewhere.
Tahai seems to have been one (the?) port of the old civilization and has been restored in the 1960s.
In Hanga Roa.
When Europeans discovered Easter Island on Easter Sunday of 1722, most of the statures where still standing. But some internal wars included the act of statue toppling and by the mid-1800s only few where still standing.
The waiting area of gate 1 of Mataveri airport. For once not your exchangeable, bland, air-conditioned gate.
View from my hotel window at the Santiago airport.