Rapa Nui - Easter Island - Isla de Pascua - Te Pito o Te Henua ("The Navel of the World")
Take a gander at a world map and locate Rapa Nui. Don't feel too bad if you can't find it right away. [Ed: I hope the map at the right saves you some time. :) ] It takes more ink to dot an "i" than it does to mark this island on a world map. In the vast Pacific Ocean which covers a third of the Earth's surface, this island stands out about as much as a grain of salt on a piece of white paper. This makes it all the more astounding that anyone managed to find their way between 400 A.D. and 700 A.D. from Southeast Asia (some would argue they came from South America, but more evidence points to Southeast Asia) to one of the most remote places on Earth on nothing more than outrigger canoes. They managed to find this 10 mile wide and 15 mile long island (2300 miles west off the coast of Chile and 2500 miles southeast of Tahiti) without the aid of a GPS, compasses, sextants or Dramamine. We get lost finding our way to the next hostel even with our Lonely Planet Guide book.

On Easter Day in 1722 when the Dutch Captain Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island, it was nearly uninhabited. Two civilizations had formed, the long ears who enslaved the short ears, and the short ears who eventually revolted and killed the long ears. In their efforts to honor their ancestors through the building of the moai and to accommodate for their expanding population, they stripped the island of its resources, clearing forests for agriculture and for means of transporting the moai. In their struggle for survival, they eventually began to eat one of their last relatively abundant resources, each other. Vegetarians were among the first to perish. The Birdman culture soon followed. It gave the Birdman and his clan control of the distribution of the island's remaining resources for one year at which time a new Birdman would be selected. If you are visualizing Big Bird battling with the Cookie Monster for left-overs, you are only partially wrong.

After carefully considering undertaking the perilous voyage by outrigger canoe to the most isolated inhabited island on Earth, it dawned on us that we get nauseous in a water bed and we really don't know a damn thing about sailing. We opted for the less traditional, less glamorous but significantly quicker form of transportation. We fell asleep within five minutes of boarding the plane in Santiago and woke up as the wheels touched down on this mystical island.

Our new travel partners who we linked up with at our hostel in Santiago, Marco and Francesca, were an incredibly amusing Italian brother and sister duo. Marco, who takes pictures by sheer volume, and Fracesca, who can speak more languages than we knew existed, were getting reaquainted as siblings, much to our delight. We explored the island together by car, bicycle and foot. They were fantastic travel partners with whom we shared many laughs, sunrises, sunsets and an unhealthy obsession for taking large quantities of less-than-adequate photographs.

Of the 887 known moai on Easter Island, Matt and Marco intended to see all 887 at every possible angle in every possible lighting condition. Jen and Francesca were perfectly content being dropped off and picked up on the stunningly beautiful white sand beach of Anakena, where they were serenaded by half of the Chilean Navy.

During our routine visits to Ahu Tahai for sunrise and sunset, we had the good fortune of bumping into Steve, much to his dismay, who was taking some shots for a BBC documentary. He seemed a bit resistant in taking our photographic advice, which was not in short supply, but he was kind enough to offer us some in return. Some of his photographic pearls of wisdom were quite enlightening such as, "1. Get the hell out of my way! 2. Take the lens cap off before taking a picture; and 3. Don't quit your day job". Uh oh...we already did that. We returned Steve's generosity by helping him get rid of his left over pesos in the airport bar. (You can see some of his photos at www.stevedavey.com.)

On to Tahiti...