Heed Land *

Easter Island was always going to be one of the highlights of our trip and somewhere both of us really wanted to go and it didn´t disappoint one bit.

The Island is the most remote inhabited place in the World. Although it actually belongs to Chile, it´s part of Polynesia. Rumours abound as to how the island became populated with people from Fiji and Tonga (the earliest settled parts of Polynesia), who in turn originated from Taiwan and the Philippines.

The Polynesian name for the island is Rapa Nui which is also the native language of the island´s 4500 human inhabitants, although they are out numbered by the 5000+ horses!!

The largest population on the island was believed to have been around 12000 in the past, although this fell (and was recorded by missionaries) to just over 100 people following the introduction of ´western´diseases.

The island is most famous for one thing - its stone Moai (statues) of which there are over 1000. They were built by local clans as a link between the past (afterlife) and the present. By the late 1800´s all completed statues were toppled.

Various theories exist as to why this happened, none of which have been proven, but included inter clan warfare, the emergence of a ´birdman cult´ and maybe even the sighting of a ship. The birdman cult developed a written petroglyph language which is the only known recorded Polynesian language of its era and it has never been deciphered.

Fortunately a number of sites have been restored to their original state, the eldest dates from 1100 AD. We were lucky enough to visit many of these sites with Alex our excellent guide who is the daughter of a prominent local archaeologist. Some of the sites we visited have different stories and tales surrounding them. One of them Ahu Tongariki which consists of 15 Moai was renovated thanks to TADANO the Japanese crane company. The reason behind this - a staff member dropped a note in a suggestion box at his factory in Japan suggesting that to improve their PR, TADANO should sponsor the renovation of the statues. US$ 20 million later the statues stood proudly again, backs to the sea.

Ahu Akivi is a unique site in that the statues are placed much further inland than the others and also because they face the sea - the only site of this type on the island. It isn´t known why the Moai were placed in this way.

The most fascinating site was the quarry where most of the Moai were carved from volcanic basalt rock- now affectionately known as ´the nursery´. The statues in the quarry were not destroyed even though some of them were in an almost finished state and ready to be transported to their Ahu (a stone platform) somewhere on the island. The biggest statue of all, at a huge 22m and 500 tonnes is still attached to the basalt in a horizontal position.

We also visited Orongo, a village used for ceremonies on the rim of an extinct volcano.

Our hostel was not great, suffering from damp, bed bugs, a lack of TLC and a miserable owner. However, it would have taken a lot more than that to spoil our time on such a magical island.

The capital of Rapa Nui is Hanga Roa, it´s a bit of a one horse town, with lots of dogs and horses. We tried out the local food, empanadas with either beef or tuna, a completo, which is a hotdog with advocado, fresh tomato and mayo - it´s a national institution in Chile!

The fact that mass tourism has not yet arrived here was a major plus and made our time on Easter Island very special. The remoteness of the island helps, so thankfully the plague of international commercialism still seems a long way off.

* For those of you who don´t know, HEED is Geordie and Scottish slang for HEAD.