Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is only accessible via Santiago, Chile or via Papeete.  Since Chile has enough in and of itself to warrant a trip, we decided to interrupt our French Polynesian vacation with three days in Easter Island.

Easter Island is mainly known for its "moai", which are large stone statues with faces and bodies.  They were left all over the island, mainly close to the sea.  Tribal wars resulted in most of the moai being knocked over, but restoration projects are slowly erecting them on their original platforms.

From Papeete, there are only flights twice a week into Easter Island.  So, either you go for 3 days, or you go for a whole week.  We chose a couple of days, and it turned out that was more than enough time to see what we wanted to see and do a little bit of souvenir shopping.