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Summary

We visited Easter Island (Rapa Nui) for three days during January 2006 on our way to Patagonia and the Falklands. Rapa Nui a remarkably interesting and easy to visit destination. Despite its world-wide fame, the island is not crowded with tourists. Culturally, the local people are Polynesian but politically the island is part of Chile. The dominant language spoken is Spanish with some English spoken for tourist purposes. Food, accommodation, sightseeing, and diving were all good. Below we've included a short trip report and we've also posted a few pictures from the trip.

Practicalities

We used the Web and the Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island guide (Amazon US | UK) guide to plan our trip. We stayed at the Mana Nui Inn (http://www.rapanuiweb.com/mananui). This worked out well as the property is about a 10-15 minute walk out of town, both quiet and convenient. From the veranda of our cabin, we could see one of the restored Moai on the coastline below. We rented a jeep from the owner's daughter for one day to drive around the island. Luckily for us, a pair of british archeologists on holiday were happy to come along and explain more about what we were seeing. Local guiding with transport can also be arranged easily.
In town, the restaurants we tried were good and reasonably priced. There's also a supermarket and a local fruit market, if you want to pick up some food outside of a restaurant.

Archeology

The great stone heads are not a disappointment. Even though the "mystery" of the heads construction has long solved without resorting to supernatural or extraterrestrial forces, they're still fascinating. Apart from the great stone city of Nan Madol on Pohnpei, the monuments on Rapa Nui are some of the most intriguing artifacts in the Pacific. In historical times, the monuments were all toppled and destroyed. In recent times, with great local effort, several of the heads and supporting platforms have been restored. It would take days to do even a cursory review of all of the major sites. In our one day with a car, we visited Rano Raraku (the quarry site), Te Pito O Te Henua (The Navel of the World ), Anakena, and Ahu Nau Nau. Each site was different and within each site, each Moai was different. There's a wide variety of sizes and styles to see. If we get a chance to return, we would like to stay longer and visit the sites more carefully.

Birds

Rapa Nui's native forests, birds, and seabird colonies were wiped out by the first settlers. Today, it supports only a handful of bird species, largely introduced. While there, we saw Masked Booby Sula dactylatra, Great Frigatebird Fregata minor, Chimango Caracara Milvago chimango, Rock Dove Columba livia, Common Diuca-finch Diuca diuca and House Sparrow Passer domesticus.

Diving and Fish

We went for one dive during our visit and enjoyed it thoroughly. We went out with Orca Diving Center (http://www.seemorca.cl/) who impressed us as a competent and conscientious group. They charged $50 US (many things are priced in $US on Rapa Nui) for one dive with all gear. The water temperature was around 77F/25 C with good visibility. The fish diversity is not terribly large, as you would expect from a highly isolated island on the eastern side of the Pacific. However, fish were numerous, attractive, and relatively unafraid. Apart from schools of the endemic butterflyfish, beautiful and unfamiliar wrasses, trumpetfish, and cow fish were abundant. The cow fish were a particular pleasure as they're normally relative shy and small. The animals here were large, numerous, and seemingly curious.

Books and Guides

We used the previous edition of Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island and found it's coverage of Easter Island useful, but sparse. Mostly, we researched our options on the Web. Hopefully, the new edition is more useful. (Amazon US | UK).

There are so few birds on Rapa Nui, there's not much need for a bird book. If you want one, get Birds of Chile (2003) by Alvaro Jaramillo (Amazon US | UK). This excellent field guide covers Easter Island, Chile, the Falklands, and the Antarctic peninsula. This is a must-have guide, if you are spending time in Chile, Argentina, or the Falklands.

We did not find a fish book that addresses the Rapa Nui endemics, but it's hard to go wrong with Reef Fish Identification: Tropical Pacific (2003) by Allen, Steene, Humann, and DeLoach. (Amazon US | UK) Good fish books are hard to find. This title provides the best coverage of the tropical Pacific we've found in one volume. Each species description includes a high-quality photograph, description, identifying features, and range description. Highly recommended.