Easter Island: One of the world’s most remote places

I’m only half an hour into my first Easter Island walk when my husband Stu leaps off the path, sticks his nose in the air and starts asking our tour companions for gratuities. “I’m over here!” he shouts, waving his arms like streamers. Everyone turns and stares. First at him, then at me.

Mortified, I follow Stu off-piste, embarrassed by his bizarre antics, wondering why my otherwise easy-going husband has gone mad.

“What are you doing?” I hiss, tugging his T-shirt, trying to pull him back on to the path. Earlier, our guide Carlos had scolded me for stepping off the walkway – tourists can be fined for disrespecting the local land.

Stu has positioned himself beside a moai – the name of the giant statues that dot the grassy knolls of Easter Island. Carved out of the island’s volcanic rock nearly 1,000 years ago, these enormous stone heads were built to honour the island’s very important people.

Yet with their long noses, protruding chins and set-back eyes, they look remarkably like… Stu.

“I always told you I was a VIP,” he says, basking in his new-found fame. “This entire island has dedicated hundreds of statues to me!”

We first heard about Easter Island while on holiday in Santiago, Chile, when we saw a documentary about a tiny Polynesian island covered in giant heads and extinct volcanoes.

It had looked so beautiful and wild – we just had to see it. A five-hour flight later, we’d touched down at Mataveri International Airport to the swishing of grass skirts, cool coconut drinks and leis made of freshly plucked frangipanis.

As our driver had navigated the dirt roads towards the hotel Posada de Mike Rapu, he’d occasionally stopped to give way to one of the 6,000 wild horses that roam free on the island. Burnt yellow fields rolled quietly towards the roaring ocean; a lone palm tree the only reminder of the thick jungle that once covered this isolated land.

Impressive work ethic

“Most of the moai on the island – we estimate there were about 1,000 – were carved from this quarry,” he says. “You can see the evolution of the moai here,” he points to the outlines of the statues in the rock. Some are very small, while others look around 10 metres tall. “When someone important died, the village would request that a moai be made so that person’s mana [good luck and special powers] would protect them. The villagers had to feed and house the workers while they made the statue, which could take a year.”

Most of the moai line the island’s coast, which is up to 11 miles from the quarry, and are strategically placed on platforms to protect the villages from invaders. Even to this day, questions remain about how such a primitive people managed to move hundreds of tonnes of rock around the island.

National Geographic may have found the answer. It funded an expedition to Easter Island, sending archaeologists on a mission to find out exactly how these enormous statues – the largest weighing more than 80 tonnes – were transported from the quarry.

“They recreated the scene and realised it is possible the moai ‘walked’ from their quarries to the platforms around the island,” says Carlos. “We think they tied three ropes around the moai, rocking them back and forth, which created the walking motion.”

Nearby, a fallen moai’s head sinks into the soft grass, its empty eye sockets (once made from coral) staring blankly at the blue sky above.

The local people believed that if a moai fell while being transported to its new home, its mana was worthless and the moai was to be left where it toppled. Workers would then return to the quarry and start a year’s worth of work all over again. And I thought losing an unsaved article on Word was bad…

A Birdman in the hand

The sea is swollen before we leave the jetty and by the time our fishing boat reaches open waters it’s lathering into a fury.

It’s not exactly an idyllic day to go snorkelling in the Pacific, but when I point this out to Stu, he’s not perturbed – certain he’ll be the first person saved in case of an emergency, given his striking similarity to the revered statues of the island.

Our guide Sam cuts the engine beside Motu Nui, a tiny, uninhabited speck in the ocean. As we bob uneasily in the rough waters, Sam points towards the ominous-looking cliffs of Easter Island, now being battered by swirling winds.

“It was pretty dangerous crossing the water, but the first man to make it back with the egg would be the winner; his chief got to be the Birdman and ruler of the island for the year.”

While I try to imagine it, Sam guns the boat towards the other side of Motu Nui. Here, the sea turns from black to turquoise, and pulling on our snorkelling masks, we plop into the cool water. The visibility’s perfect, yet there are hardly any fish here, the water around Easter Island eerily devoid of sea life.

We admire the rocks jutting out of the sea bed, the marvellous sensation of looking deep down into the ocean as far as our eyes will let us.

But in the absence of many tropical fish to look at, we eventually drift back to the boat, where Sam’s waiting to take us back to port.

The sky is blackening, the clouds moving thunderously overhead. It’s time to leave.

No one mentioned audience participation. Surrounded by a stage of bronzed, rhythmically blessed Polynesian dancers, my first dose of embarrassment consists of an uncoordinated shimmy and wobble of my stomach after I’m pulled to my feet. With the spotlight shining and 100 strangers – plus Stu – laughing, my dance partner takes pity on me, letting me hurry back to my seat.

But then it happens again. My new partner – who clearly notices that I can barely get my hips to move in unison, let alone my entire body – pulls me up on stage to teach me the island’s traditional dance moves.

“OK!” I squeal.

I try to ignore the cameras popping as he shows me how to loosen my hips and move my arms to the sound of the waves. I’m just getting the hang of it when he starts stamping his feet ferociously.

I glance at Stu, expecting a look of shame; instead, he’s in hysterics. Even when I sit back down, he’s laughing so hard he can barely speak.

“Actually, Stu, I think he wants you,” I say, as he’s hauled to his feet.

“Maybe they recognise you,” I add, giggling. And suddenly, Stu’s not laughing any more.