Moai! ...Birdman cults! ...More Moai! ...Easter Island! The nearest land is about 3700km in one direction or the other. You really feel like you´ve arrived at the most isolated place on the planet. None of that matters though, the x hour plane trip here is worth it, once you see the first few Moai! The nursery is especially impressive, It is the place where the Moai were being constructed and hundereds of them are still scattered all over the place. In various stages of construction, work on them only ceased gradually it seems. There are platforms, ahu´s, with remains of Moai all over the island. You can rent 4-wheeldrives, motorbikes and quadbikes to go around the place. I decided to go for a mountainbike instead -bad decision- the loop around the island is about 45km, but it is quite hilly, and takes about a day. I felt every bone in my body the day after... pff.
Easter Island is a bit of a mystery, some people believe that the civilization on the island collapsed after resources, escpecially trees, on the island became scarce. Most Moai have been toppled, this was apparantly done during the clan wars that occurred during civilization collapse. The local inhabitants believed that they would receive the spiritual energy inside a Moai by toppling it.
