The Mysteries of Easter Island

Chile is a wonderful country. The long coast has many beaches and other coastal attractions. It has historical sites where people interested in the past can enjoy. As for those interested in entertainment, the capital city of Santiago offers a wide range of entertainment options.

However, many few countries can claim to have access to dark and mysterious places that only a few lucky ones can visit. Chile is one of them.

For those not familiar with Easter Island, it is a Polynesian island of the southeastern Pacific Ocean, located on the southerner point of the Polynesian triangle. It was first annexed by Chile in 1888 and became part of this country’s territory.

The island is particularly famous for its 887 existing statues called moai, created by the Rapa Nui people. It was declared Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO, and a great part of the island falls under the protection of the Rapa Nui National Park.

Nobody knows for sure why the people of Easter Island created these statues, but many experts believe that each one of them represents a former chief or an important historical person.

Particularly, Easter Island has an ecosystem that characterizes for the extinction of many ancient species. The over-exploitation of resources accounts for the failure of this ecosystem. Strangely enough, the inhabitants of the island have survived. They survived hunger, slave raids, civil war and epidemics, but the ecosystem did not. These facts and the island’s isolation make it surprising for people to continue living there. Actually, there is only one way to go to Easter Island, and that is flying. Only Lan Chile serves flights to the island, both from Tahiti and from Santiago. You can even take a circular flight from Santiago to the island to Tahiti and vice versa, although this can be more expensive.

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