Rapa Nui - island of stones

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The fascinating Rapa Nui (Easter Island), most remote inhabited place on earth, is our next stop. At least 3500 km to the neighbours it belongs to Chile thus Spanish is the official language. English works not that well. They also have another currency and are in a different time zone than Tahiti. Now we are 4 hours back again towards our own time.

The island has a certain rough charm. The coasts are mostly steep and lined with the remains of volcanic eruptions. The waves are strong and make it impossible to go into the water almost everywhere. The views are however stunning, endless ocean wherever you look.

The inland is mostly planes and cooled volcanoes right in the middle of them. Several hundred years ago the island was covered with palm trees but the islanders cut them down one by one and the landscape changed completely. Stone protected gardens were created everywhere and their remains still characterise large areas.

Stone is not only the dominant part of the landscape it was also used as a medium for carving of pictures (so called petroglyphs) and of course for the unique statues, the moai. Read more about them in our next blog post.

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