2026 Rapi Nui(Easter Island)

We left Easter Island today but before we did we went on a sunrise tour to see the Moai in the sunrise. It was pretty cloudy but we did get some nice light break thru the clouds.

We were expecting our guide at 6am but he over-slept and picked us up about 6:30am. We drove much faster than the other tours and got to Ahu Tongariki before the sunrise. It was much more crowded than last time we saw it. This time we saw the petroglyphs too.

We went back one more time to Anakena beach to see the Moai in a different light.

After the tour, we went back to the lodge for breakfast and to finish packing. We had a 11:30am pickup because we were supposed to pick up another couple. Turns out they got a different ride therefore we were at the airport quite a bit before we needed to be there.

Today there was only one flight from Santiago, usually there are two flights a day from Santiago- these flights are the only ones that are available.

We enjoyed a small snack and the free-range chickens wandering around the airport before boarding our plane.

It was a smooth, little less than 5 hour flight to Santiago and we arrived about 10:30pm. This time we had the official hotel shuttle and got to the hotel with no trouble.

We saw Moai and more today on the Hidden Treasures tour. By the end of the day, we’ve traveled almost all of the paved roads on the island. Only one of the roads had a center stripe.

We visited random ruins, Anakena beach again to see it in a different light, a pink beach, a cave, the quarry again, Ahu Te Pito Kura,and an amazing tide pool.

Tibor really, really wanted to go to the quarry again so that’s where we went for lunch. Tibor walked around the quarry again and Jennifer and I enjoyed lunch. This time I ordered a chicken sandwich and thankfully it wasn’t raw like the fish dishes I’ve ordered!

After the tour, I went shopping and then into the pool to cool down, Tibor went looking for turtles and Jennifer prepared for tomorrow’s travel day.

In the evening we went to a different restaurant overlooking the beach to enjoy another sunset. We got a nice table this time and weren’t too hot and finished dinner in time to wander around and enjoy the nearby Moai by sunset.

Once again a meal ordered didn’t match expectations. I ordered salad and calamari expecting the calamari to be breaded and fried. Instead the calamari came just barely seared. It was super fresh and well prepared- it just wasn’t what I expected. It’s a shame I don’t care for such fresh seafood since I’m sure it was delicious. Tibor enjoyed another meal out of it and I did enjoy my salad.

We had another full day tour today- Moai Monuments.  We did indeed spend most of the day visiting Moai sites and then returned back to the hotel in the afternoon.

We learned that the Moai faced the village so they could watch over the people. They didn’t face the ocean.

We learned that the Moai had eyes made of shell and obsidian(pupil) that decayed over time. Once in awhile a Moai would have the white & black eye but they were modern and not the original.

We learned that Moai that were royal got a topknot- a special red block made of reddish-pink volcanic rock on top of their heads. All of these topknots were from a single location on the island.

We learned that during the civil war all the Moai were tipped over and many were buried with stones. At a few sites Moai were uncovered, tipped back up and restored to their original position.

Here are some of the sites we visited:

• 5 + 2 Moai at beach in town
• 7 Moai at the Anakena Beach (Hana Ray Anakena)
• 15 + 1 Moai at Ahu Tongariki
• Untold number at Rano a Raraku (the volcanic quarry where most Moai were created)
• number of fallen Moai at various sites

There were so many rock structures/piles on Rapa Nui it’s hard to determine which are ruins. Some are fences, some are piles of rocks covering Moai, some are buildings that have collapsed, some are chicken coops, some are just rocks and some are protections for plants. They use rocks to create a barrier to prevent the salty air and wind from damaging the plants.

Cows and horses are free-range and we had to mind our step whenever we walked around- even within the National Park sites.

As we left the quarry, Tibor bought us each a small pineapple from a vendor at the entrance to the quarry. The vendor cut off the skin of the pineapple and folded the leaves down, leaving us with a pineapple popsicle. We ate it like corn on the cob and left the center piece thinking it would be woody and fibrous like our pineapples at home and not really edible. When I took the left over bit back to the vendor for disposal, the vendor said the center was the best part and he was right. It was sweet and juicy.

In the evening we went to a cultural show at a local restaurant.  It was amazing.  The dancers were fabulous and the costumes were pretty neat too.  Before the show we got a design painted on our faces- we never did learn if there was any meaning to each design. We ate dinner at the restaurant where the show took place.  We were there very early so we were finished with our meal before the show started.  Many folks were eating and drinking while the show took place.

This time I was the one that got the unexpected dinner.  I ordered abalone and thought it would be prepared like we prepared it at home- breaded & fried.  Instead it was marinated in lime? juice and not cooked at all.  It was on a bed of lettuce with potatoes covered in something like mayonnaise.  The lettuce and potatoes are tasty but I gave almost all of the abalone to Tibor to have with his dinner.

We all slept in and almost missed our 9am tour.  Even Jennifer slept in- we were all surprised when we woke up and it was 8:30 and time for breakfast.

Our tour today is Historic Pathways and we saw the same crater as yesterday but from another angle/side.  Our first visit was to the Orongo ceremonial village (a site of Rapi Nui National Park) and we learned a bit about the BirdMan era.  The park had many rock buildings and it was amazing how they could construct a building out of rocks that didn’t fall down.

There had been a civil war on Rapi Nui where the clans/families were fighting each other and in an effort to stop the civil war, they created the BirdMan competition where  the winning representative of a clan was chosen as the island leader.  The competition included climbing down the cliff face, swimming across the channel to an offshore island, collecting an egg from the Sooty Tern(manutara) colony and returning to the start.  One interesting thing was that the competitors could be on the island waiting for days for the Sooty Terns to lay eggs so they could collect one.  They had to cooperate in order to get shelter and food while they were waiting.

Of course we went to Rapi Nui (Easter Island) to see the ‘big heads’.  These are called Moai. Moai are giant monolithic human figures carved from volcanic rocks.  They serve as representatives from ‘important’ people of the clan/family.  They are supposed to protect the clan/family and bring prosperity.  Once the civil war came, the Moai were pushed over by the enemy clan or by the clan they failed to protect. We saw fallen Moai. They are all over the island.

We had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the bay where turtles are often seen and watched people play in the water while the turtles swam around.  Tibor was extra happy the resturant served empanadas as that was something he really wanted to try while in Rapi Nui.

After lunch we went to Ahu Akivi and saw seven standing Moai which were restored/moved so they were standing in their original position.

We were out most of the day and returned about 4pm.  Jennifer and I took advantage of the pool at the hotel while Tibor napped.

In the evening we went out for dinner at the Te Moai Sunset restaurant because we wanted to see the sunset.  It was further from the hotel than we expected but we did enjoy more Moai along the way.  We didn’t have reservations so they sat us at the one remaining table- it was very hot and sunny there but we stayed anyway. 

The menus are not in English so we don’t always know exactly what we are ordering.  Today Jennifer ordered a dish she thought included grilled/seared fish but it was raw tuna and she can’t eat raw fish right now.  Tibor was willing to trade his fish soup for her meal as long as she left the broth for him.  He really liked the fish soup he had yesterday.  He liked today’s as well but it didn’t taste the same.

We were almost finished with dinner when at 9:15pm the sunset was shining behind to Moai so Tibor rushed out for photos, then I rushed out for a couple of photos and came back so Jennifer could rush out for photos.  While Jennifer stepped to a window at the resturant to take a photo of the sunset, the waitress removed the bowl of Tibor’s fish soup broth!  Oh Oh.  The waitress fixed the problem by ordering another complete bowl of fish soup for Tibor.  We did have a fun meal and all enjoyed the sunset.  

 It was just light enough to see when we walked back.

Other photos from the day:

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel before our 5:30am shuttle to the airport.  We’re coming back to the same hotel so this time we pre-arranged a shuttle.  We also left a bunch of cold-weather clothes and luggage at the front desk to be picked up after Easter Island.

Folks thought we gave it too much time before our 8:35am flight. But we were happy we gave ourselves extra time.  There was another form we had to fill out before we could check in for Easter Island.  We were so happy we had cell phones and it was an electronic form so we stood at the counter and filled it out.  When we were finished, we realized we had already filled it out but had no record of it!  

After checking in, we went to the customs line and there is a separate (slower) line for folks going to Rapi Nui(Easter Island) where they also asked for the form and we were happy we had it.

It’s was a 5 1/2 hour flight from Santiago to Easter Island but with the two hour time change we arrived about noon.  This time our shuttle was there and waiting for us.  We checked into our hotel(Hotel Manavai) and took a nap before our 4pm Crater Walk tour.

Easter Island is a tiny volcanic island- 63 square miles. The maximum length is 15 miles and the maximum width is 12 miles

YoYo was our guide and we took a walk up to and along the eastern rim of the mile wide volcano crater of Rano Kau on the southwestern tip of Rapa Nui- it was pretty neat and we were happy to walk around a bit.

After the tour, we were thirsty so we went to the bar/restaurant a the hotel and had Pisco Sours, Beer and dinner.

We were happy our star-gazing tour was cancelled as we were pretty tired and went back to our room right after dinner.

Today was a long travel day as we go from Queenstown New Zealand to Santiago, Chile. The flight from Queenstown to Auckland was about 2 hours, there was about a 4 hour layover in Auckland and then the flight to Santiago was about 11 hours.   We left our Queenstown hotel about 11 am and arrived our Santiago hotel about 5pm on the same day because we crossed the international date line.

Jennifer called an Uber and picked a ride that said 4 people plus luggage.  The car that arrived was pretty tiny and we were going to send it back but figured we’d try to fit first- we managed to put all our luggage and us into the car.  It was pretty packed and we had luggage on our laps but we weren’t worried since it was about 10 minutes to the airport. 

We gave ourselves about 3 hours to get to the airport and go thru all the security.  The Queenstown airport was very busy and crowded.  It took awhile to figure out how to check in and check our bags.  We purchased our flight from Latam but Air New Zealand was the carrier for the portion from Queenstown to Auckland and Jennifer’s app didn’t let her get a boarding pass to Auckland- it created one for Auckland to Santiago but not Queenstown to Auckland.  We did figure it out and didn’t spend too much time in the wrong line.  After a couple of small stuff bags were moved from Jennifer’s luggage to Tibor’s luggage, we were happy that our luggage wasn’t overweight.

As has been our experience this trip- at least one of our bags was called out of the security line for an extra check.  So far every bag has been re-checked at least once on this trip.

We made it to the gate with about an hour to spare only to find out our flight was delayed about 30-40 minutes so the gate area was also crowded.  It’s a smaller airport so the deplaning passengers walk right past the passengers that are ready to board making the gate area extra crowded when a plane arrives.

Nice flight to Auckland- we saw Mt. Cook from the air.  Since we were delayed we didn’t have as much time for our layover in Auckland. We were enjoying the lounge and food and it was a good thing Jennifer reminded us it was time to go to the gate or we might have missed our flight to Santiago.

We went thru arrival customs/immigration in Santiago which took some time because Jennifer was the chosen one this time and the dog sniffer alerted on her bag with the chocolate.  They didn’t take the chocolate so it was all good.

Our special experience in Santiago was the ride from the airport to the hotel.  There was supposed to be a shuttle available from the airport to the hotel but it turned out it had to be arranged ahead of time.  It would have taken 2 hours to get the shuttle.  Luckily(?) there was a greeter at the airport that helped us get a driver and ride to the hotel.  We hopped into the car with our luggage and away we went.  As we neared the hotel, the driver stopped along the road and another person ran over to the car with the card reader to take the $10 payment.  We offered cash but they wanted a card payment.  I pulled out my credit card and they tapped it but it failed because it required a PIN.  Then I pulled out my debit card and entered the PIN (it showed up on the screen in the clear- very odd).  Then they moved the card reader around because ‘there was no signal’ hmmmmm….Then I got an alert on my phone – there was a charge of $233.16!!! Oh Oh…then I got another alert on my phone- there was a charge of another $233.16.  I grabbed my card from the card reader and we gave the driver $10 cash and he took us to the hotel.   At the hotel I called and cancelled my debit card- they did show the charges for $233.16 but I caught it in time so they cancelled the transaction and we’re not out any money.  I’m glad I had another card and am traveling with Tibor & Jennifer so we can pay for the rest of the trip.

We were dropped off along side the road by a closed gate with a security guard- at this point we were a bit worried when the car/driver sped off but the guard let us in since we had a reservation.

At the hotel, they didn’t seem surprised that we were scammed because the real charge should have been $20.  We, of course, had no idea of what the correct charge should have been and we had been so happy to have a greeter/helper to help us.  The greeter/helper even had a badge with his name so I thought he was from the tourist board.  This is the first time in my travels that something like this has happened. I’m so happy I have a cell phone that works in Chile so I could cancel my card.

The hotel was nice and we were happy to be there. Immediately after dropping off the luggage in our room, I got a Pisco Sour and lunch at the hotel dining room. Jennifer and Tibor joined me.