Rapa Nui, Easter Island -- December 3, 2007

So we ended up buying tickets to visit Rapanui (Easter Island). We thought that when we re-entered French Polynesia our visas would be renewed but that was old informationg. Never the less it was a wonderful experience. We stayed there for a week and the weather was much colder that what we had experienced in French Polynesia. The biggest relief for us all was that finally we could get by on our mediocre Spanish rather than our non-existent French. For me it just felt so much more like home. It is a spectacular island and learning about the history was also really interesting. My dad went there on his first year-long sailing trip, when they raced in the Trans-Pac to Tahiti, but a lot more archaeological work has been done since then. Looking at an island that was completely deforested on behalf of human interests was enlighting as to how much influence we can have as a people on our environment. When we were there, the Esmeralda, which is a Chilean navy ship came into the harbor so we got to watch the soccer game between the locals and the military. The island is the most isolated in the world. When you are there you can feel this sense that this is the only spit of land for a long way. It is just in the Pacific ocean without anything nearby. We went on tours of the archaeological sites on the island and we spent one day riding horses which was a lot of fun. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the culture there is that the population was reduced to only 111 people at one point. From those the people have recovered tremendously, and have restored a great deal of their original culture. The population was decimated by disease and slavery. Now with the influence of the modern world, drugs post a horrible threat to the serene island life. Like many of the South Pacific islands, the importation of drugs destroys the culture. Overall the trip was a great experience, and the Chilean government has done a good job of maintaining the island.