I was incredibly fortunate that on my first day of ‘work’ on Easter Island, I was invited to join a tour of the Island alongside the Geological Team from Chilean Universities who are currently working on an environmental diagnostic of the Island. This Island is unlike anywhere that I have ever visited before: cows, chickens, dogs and horses roam the land freely alongside tropical palm trees. You very much get the sense that the people here are connected to both their cultural heritage and the land on which they live. The sky is almost always a picturesque blue, occasionally dark clouds indicate advancing heavy rain, but not on this day. I unfortunately got rather burnt despite much sun cream as the ozone layer here is very thin; something to bear in mind!
The stand-out moment of this tour was of course the remarkable Moai statues. You are able to see many of these dotted around the Island, but the most striking collection stand imperiously by the coast side by side. It was a view which I will never forget. These more ‘modern’ statues were built prior to the 1500’s and some are over 20 meters tall! We also saw some smaller statues which were built more than 1500 years ago. This was not all however, we also explored reconstructions of typical houses from the pre-colonial period as well as forgotten ceremonial sites and burial grounds.
We concluded our tour of the wonders of this Island by visiting Ovahe beach, where we were greeted by a mixture of emerald green and sapphire blue waters whilst we enjoyed our lunch. The Pacific Ocean is a wonderous thing and many of us took the opportunity to go swimming. I do hope you have enjoyed reading this short summary of a fantastic day on Easter Island. If this sounds like something that you would like to experience, please get in touch with the CONAF team and perhaps, in a few weeks, it will be you that sees the wonders of this mystical Pacific Island whilst making a positive difference in its conservation.