Photos

The Place
An unmistakably Moai from Rapa Nui (a.k.a. Easter Island or Isla de Pascua) . This is the Ahu Akahanga, on the east side of the island.
On Easter Sunday 1722, Easter Island's 1400 years of isolation ended when three Dutch ships under the command of Jacob Roggeveen sighted the island. The probably encounter people like this man.
After the Dutch, the Spanish under Don Felipe Gonzalez de Haedo were the next to arrive, in 1770. Captain James Cook stopped briefly in 1774, during his second voyage to the South Seas.
They found most of the Moais toppled, as shown here, due to the internal wars between clans. But the damage brought by those wars pale in comparison to the catastrophic effects of their discovery by the western world on the island society.
You can always check the location of my photos by clicking on the map link. To have a sense of scale, check the workshop.

Background
This was our second destination, after San Pedro de Atacama, in our trip to Chile last December. This is during our first full day there, when we took a tour.
We usually do not take tours nor guides when we travel, but here it is very advisable to take one or two, and then you could explore the island by bike, motorbike, or car.