Easter Island has a lot of acheological sights that are worth exploring. While it can be easy to do self exploration, the sites at Easter Island aren’t well marked in terms of informative travel. Our third day on the island would have us taking a tour to be fully informed about the sites. Our investment was well worth it.

This post is one chapter on our trip to Mexico City, Mexico and Easter Island, Chile. This trip was enhanced through Alaska Mileage Plan and through Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction here. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

If you enjoyed this post, please follow us here or on social media through Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for more travel tips and hacks on how to “Upgrade Your Travels”.



Activity: The Megaliths of the South Coast of Easter Island, Chile.

We had breakfast at the Hotel Taura’a hotel, which was included in our room rate. I had researched on Trip Advisor and Easter Island Travel was the top rated tour. The comments generally favoured the depth and breath of experience of the tour guides.

Booking Easter Island Tours:

Going in, the website was professional and they offered a full Easter Island experience in two days / two tours. They also offered guided walks to some of the lessor known sites; a feature we would have used if we were staying for a longer period of time. We booked both tours about 5 days in advance at $90 USD per person per tour. They also offered fully private tours at $145 USD per person if that’s your thing. I was a little worried about the LATAM Easter Island Fare not being honored and didn’t want to end up with a whole bunch of sunk costs, which is why we booked late. In the end, I would recommend booking a little further in advance as we didn’t get our first choice of tour days and had to spend the first day on our own in Easter Island without a tour guide. Either way, their tours were excellent and I would easily recommend them.

Getting back to the day, we were picked up by Easter Island Tours guide Patricio. We had booked on the “Megaliths” tour today. There were only 2 other people in the tour so it was the 5 of us altogether for the day. Our guide Patricio had lived on the island of Rapa Nui for 40 years. He had many interesting stories of moving here and marrying a local Rapa Nui woman. He several great stories of having witnessed the island change from having only 6 cars to now several hundreds of them.

Ahu Vinapu:

We went over to our initial site Ahu Vinapu which was just off the airport runway. It was a bit of a grey day this morning. We saw the cominbations and formations of new ahu landings versus old ones. This included an explanation of the precision that was used in constructing the ahu platforms. I didn’t realize that the ahu’s were sacred ground where the remains of the elders and family members were buried.

One rectangular piece is a great example of how precise the platforms were cut. It was “inca style” block cutting although it was not proven if the Incas from Peru had visited easter islald or whether the technique just made sense.

Most of the Rapa Nui history was passed down through oral traditions. As with other cultures, sometimes there are slight variences in the stories.

We also saw one of the few female moai statues that was remaining. It was a small upright column that had breasts on it. It was the sole one standing up in this photo and it didn’t look like much. It was unusal as all the other moai were of men.

We also learned about the civil war that occurred on the island. In short, we learned bout long ears versus the short ears. The long ears were the royalty of the island having likely wore decorations in the form of heavy earings that made their lobes stretch long. The long ears “employed” the short ears as their slaves. At some point, there was a civil war and the battle that resulted in many of the statues being toppled over. It also likely resulted in the freezing of moai construction projects as when the island was discovered, many elements were in a frozen state of construction.

The Coast at Hanga Poukara:

Departing the site, we headed over to Hanga Poukara. We looked at some jagged volcanic coast line. It was very beautiful with lots of water. Our visit today had lots of wild horses roaming through the coast. This was a similar feature to other visits we had on the island. I couldn’t figure out whether anyone owned these but they seemed to wander free all over the place.

We made it past the horses and over to the coastline. The rough rocks made it for a spectacular sound with the waves crashing ashore that photos don’t do real justice.

The ruins of Akahanga Village:

We left Hanga Poukara and travelled up the road to Akahanga, a site we visited yesterday. We looked at different areas. It was more symbolic with a guide as we were able to get the interpretations on many items. Overall the site was a large village like an inca village. We were able to inspect the small house foundations for sleeping (left side of the photograph). The houses, in that time, were just used for sleeping, and all the living (cooking, eating, cleaning) occurred outside of the sleeping area. You can also see the proximity of the houses to the fallen moai on the shoreline (in the distance).

Similar to the archeological ruins of Egypt, each site has some unique features to it that make them special and unique. At this site, we looked at several toppled moai with particular examination for the eye sockets and their formation. History described that most of the finishing touches for the moai were constructed when they were finally mounted on the platform. The moai were made to be representations of the elders of the community after they had passed away.

This particular site had some hieroglyphics carved into the nearby rock at the base of the toppled moai.

Unusually so, this was one of the only sites that had a toppled “baby” moai. It was reported to be initially on a local platform now resting on its back with a view of the ocean. It’s always hard to imagine the death of a child and I can’t help but wonder the circumstances of how this one became to be imortalized in a moai statue.

We wandered through the village looking at features of the toppled moai. The Akahanga site was among the largest of our visit so there was lots to see with the guide.

On our way out, we looked at at a shelter cave at AkaHenga. Again, it was just for sleeping in not for living in.

Te Ara O Te Mora:

We left Akahanga and headed up the road to Te Ara O Te Mora. All of the moai were chiseled from the Rano Raraku quarry, which was just up the road. Something happened on the island, either a civil war or population starvation, which caused all the production activity and moai to stop suddenly. Te Ara O Te Mora was an example of this: a massive maoi that likely weighed several tons that sat frozen in transit… miles from it’s final destination. It was similar to the mysteries of how the Pyramids of Giza were built.. did they get rolled? Dragged? It’s never been definitely or scientifically solved.

The site was again next to rugged coastline.

My First Impressions of Circumnavigating Easter Island:

We headed back to the rental truck and headed back to Hanga Roa; a full day of sightseeing accomplished. It was great to see the sights at your own pace but it was definitely lacking in full understanding since it’s an area that doesn’t offer a lot of explanatory plaques. We would get better understanding over the course of the next few days as we did our guided tours.

For those that have toured Easter Island, did you take a tour or try to self guide it ?

Our first full day on Easter Island would have us renting a car to do a little self exploration. We drove the fifty kilometre loop around Easter Island, taking in Ahu Vailhu, Akahanga, Ahu Tonariki and Anakena Beach. The self guided tourism was perfectly based, although a little lacking on information without a formal guide.

This post is one chapter on our trip to Mexico City, Mexico and Easter Island, Chile. This trip was enhanced through Alaska Mileage Plan and through Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction here. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

If you enjoyed this post, please follow us here or on social media through Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for more travel tips and hacks on how to “Upgrade Your Travels”.



Activity: Driving to Ahu Vailhu, Akahanga, Ahu Tonariki and Anakena Beach, Easter Island, Chile.

We had booked some guided tours to help us understand our time on the island. Unfortunately, the tours that we wanted did not completely align with our dates since they were off set from each other. As a result, our “Day One” on the island was self guided. I walked up from the Hotel Taura’a and rented a 4 X 4 light truck from Oceanic car rental for 35,000 CP ($56 USD). We ended up with a small Suzuki with only a mere 113,000 km on it. Checking with the rental agency the night before, there was no reservation needed and I just turned up at 9 AM and got the best available car.

There were a few dings and dents on the car based on the vehicle inspection on the right hand side of the form.

We started off with some terrific rugged coastline. Wildlife was everywhere; scattered all round without much fear of being approached by humans.

The South Coast line of Easter Island:

The surf line on the south side of the island was pretty unreal. It was similar to the ragged coast line of some parts of Hawaii and I would imagine parts of Iceland. Majestic.

Moving onwards on the tundra like landscape, after a short while, we came across our first sight; the pre-historic village of Ahu Vailhu.

The Pre-Historic Village of Ahu Vailhu:

We arrived to Ahu Vailhu, which was the site of a prehistoric village. The government runs official ticket checking sights, and we had purchased our tickets at the airport on arrival. Our entry passes were stamped, and we entered. As was the case with most of the sites, we were the only visitors here.

There were several moai that had been pushed down adjacent to the ocean. The surf crashing in behind them made for an impressive sight. There were several top knots (the hats) lying nearby

We departed Ahu Vailhu and headed onwards through ever changing weather. Throughout our visit to the island, we had periods of intense sun, but also periods of thundershowers and intense gloomy-ness. It was similar to changing weather patterns like living in the mountains, but instead we were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Felled Moai at the Akahanga Village:

Our next site visit was Akahanga. It is a archeological sea side city site with several toppled moai. We didn’t know this at the time, and there are few plaques around to explain all the features. We would revisit this site later in the trip so I’ll save the explanations for the second visit. For this visit, we again took a walk around and appreciated the area that was once a village and admired the falled moai. This time, they were scattered all around the village area in different states (singular and group). It still amazes me that the Rapa Nui used to live in these harsh and windy sea side conditions and managed to live for several generations.

Ahu Tonariki:

Our next stop today was over to Ahu Tonariki. It’s the site that is the most well known out of the Easter Island sites. It is the largest ahu on Easter Island and has 15 moai that were restored into an upright condition under a cooperative agreement between the Tandano Limited (a crane company) and the University of Chile. Most of the moai were toppled during the earlier civil war, then swept inland by a tsunami. They’ve now been restored into a beautiful condition. All of the moai face the sunset for the summer solstice.

It was super neat to see these gorgeous moai all on your own without the pressure of being moved along with a tour group. We spent about 45 minutes here taking it all in through varying weather conditions. Again, the sites were deserted and we were all on our own.

Strangely, there was a sixteenth moai lying nearby. There was apparently room on the ahu platform for it but it never made it there.

The site allows you to walk pretty much around the entire ahu platform. I could have spent hours sitting here watching these moai; wondering about all the things they would have seen in their lifetime.

We wandered through the back to see the reconstructed ahu platform. You can see the reverse view from here towards the quarry, along with the awesome view towards the water.

We then left the spectacular sites of Ahu Tonjariki and headed counterclockwise around the island. We ended up on some rural road that seemed to be away from the few white tour vans. The road followed the coast line and contained super frothy white surf all along. We of course stopped for a few photographs along the way.

The Coconut Grove at Anakena Beach:

We then made our final stop of the day at the picture postcard beach of Anakena. This has to be one of the most beautiful island beaches I’ve been to. It has all the features you’d find in a travel brochure magazine with implanted coconut trees (from French Polynesia) that make the place look like an island paradise. You had to pass through the coconut grove to get to the beach.

History has it that the islanders came ashore at this particular spot so it has some significance to the Rapa Nui. We sacked out here for about 90 minutes and took in the sun.

There are also several moai nearby on an ahu with a wind swept field of sand in front of them. Four out of the five had top knots which was an unusually high percentage

We stayed here until the weather turned. Evidencing the changing weather of Easter Island, we got assaulted by a major tropical thunderstorm. It turned the beach paradise into a soggy space. We had to run for cover. I ended up losing (or redistributing the wealth of) a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses here and their case as we scrambled for cover.

My First Impressions of Circumnavigating Easter Island:

We headed back to the rental truck and headed back to Hanga Roa; a full day of sightseeing accomplished. It was great to see the sights at your own pace but it was definitely lacking in full understanding since it’s an area that doesn’t offer a lot of explanatory plaques. We would get better understanding over the course of the next few days as we did our guided tours.

For those that have toured Easter Island, did you take a tour or try to self guide it ?