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| General Information |
| Eastern Island or Rapa Nui, the most oriental island of Polynesia and one of the most distant places of the planet, is localized in 27° 09' South Latitude, 109° 26 Western Longitude, about 3.800 km to the east of the South America coast, on the same latitude of the Chilean port of Caldera. At the northwest is localized the Pitcairn Island at a distance of about 2.200 km |
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Weather : subtropical maritime
Annual average temperature: 20,3 ºC
Coldest Month: August (14,7º - 17ºC )
Warmest Month: February (23,8 - 27ºC )
Rainiest Month: May
Activity: Tourism, agriculture, fishing, stockbreeding
Language : Rapa Nui language, Spanish, the operators speak also French, English and German.
Money: Chilean pesos, Euro, American Dollars. Some places work also with Visa, Dinner and American Express credit cards. |
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How to arrive: The only commercial airline that flights to Eastern Island is LAN. |
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Rapa Nui Nacional Park was declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995. Eastern Island is considered the biggest museum in the open air. The islets in front of the cliff of the Rano Kau or Kari Kari volcanoes are protected as a Nature Sanctuary from 1976. |
Banks: The only bank there is, is “Banco Estado”, it has two cash points and works with any bank of the Redbanc chain of Chile; for foreigners it works with Cirrus and Master cards. One is placed outside the bank and is available 24 hours a day; the other one is in the service station and is available only in office hours.
BRIEF STORY
Te Pito o te Henua, was the vernacular denomination given to this beautiful territory by the ancestors of the current population. Its mean is based on the conception of being the spiritual center of the Polynesia, literally “The world's navel”, its own world, the Polynesian world geographically, emerged from the conjunction of three volcanoes. The oldest is Poike, 3 millions years old; the second is Rano Kau, 2,5 million years old; and the most recent is Maunga Terevaka, about 12.000 to 10.000 years old. “From the multiple eruptions of these three volcanoes and from the lava emissions, structures the main body of this island, attaching the volcanoes as their extremes”. The island is considered the oriental vertex of the Polynesia triangle and is under Chilean sovereignty since September 1888:
It is estimated that the first inhabitants arrived to Rapa Nui in the VI century A.D approximately, on board of two catamaran, guided by the Ariki Hotu Matu 'a and his sister Ariki Vi'eAva Rei Púa, following the instructions given by the real Councilor envoy Haumaka.
For the Occident, Rapa Nui was discovered by the Dutchman Jacob Roggenberg in 1722, who narrates us about his first impression, from his ship. He says it was a land of big people, as he confused the Moais with persons and writes of its inhabitants as a subtle town of beautiful women and of kind men. |
The landscape of the island wonders with its megalithic religious centers, politician dedicated to the spirits of the ancestors, who were designed as deities and were represented as megalithic statues or Moai. More than 900 Moai and 207 Ahu or altars decorate all the coastal edge and transubstantiate part of the interior terrains.
There are more than 70 parasite cones and secondary craters, among them outstands the Rano Raraku, which tuff was used to sculpt the Moai; and the small cone of volcanic scree of the Puna Pau, located on the northwest of Hanga Roa, from which interior were extracted the big cylinders of red scree (pukao) in prehistoric times, located over many of the big statues called Moai. Around Rapa Nui is developed a narrow coastal platform that increases rapidly in depth and reaches the 200 meters of depth at a media of 1.000 meters from the coast. At some miles, this finishes and steeply the ocean reaches depths of almost 8.000 meters getting close to the coast of South America, at about 4.000 meters to the east and north and 3.000 and 3.600 meters to the southeast. The characteristics of the marine bottom, the temperatures and streams impede the formation of coral reef, characteristic of other island of the tropical Polynesia. This has the marine erosion to be the main factor that has modeled the island from its emerging since more than three million years, giving rising to the big cliffs that characterize its rocky and unprotected coasts, without bays of natural shelter; only Anakena in the north coast has a large beach of white sand.
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The floors of the island are thin and its volcanic origin determines that its main characteristic is its porosity, influencing significantly in the existence of superficial water draining. There are many areas of good agricultural floors, mainly in Hanga Roa and Matarevi at the west side. |
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| Vaihu in the south coast, and Vaitea in the center of the island. Other areas of the island are covered by big flows of lava and rocky fields that correspond to the meteorization of oldest flows and the permanent action of the erosion. There are many caves and subterranean lava tubes, used in prehistoric times as permanent homes, ceremonial and funeral places or as refugees in times of intertribal wars |
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The rainfall rate of the island allows maintaining vegetation covered of meadows full of grass, mainly introduced. The water for human and animal consumption is gotten from a big subterranean lens through deep shafts. The animals are supplied also in the lakes of some craters. There exists evidence that in the past the island had biggest vegetation with extent forests, mainly of palm trees and other species which are extinguished today as a consequence of the excessive human exploitation in prehistoric times. Most of the current species of trees and animals were introduced by the first sailors, missionaries and Chileans in the last two centuries
use or intangible areas and its coasts are under the guidance of the Chilean Armada. This complex administrative superposition is not free of contradictions and territorial conflicts that have a particular incidence in its management and planning.
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