How not  to Spend a Dollar

The convoluted way we got to visit a legendary location

 

So in planning a trip to South America and needing to travel the main legs of the trip by using airline bonus points I had accumulated, we needed to decide how best to spend the points. We’re not rich by any means. We both have decent but demanding careers. Angela works in the medical field and I have worked for many years in the energy and real estate sector. Lately, I’ve been using my knowledge of travel to transition to another career. Generally we live fairly modest lives and can’t afford to travel in luxury like some. We do however try and use every trick in the book to travel efficiently and comfortably.

 

Easter Island was not a travel location that was on my radar. The remoteness almost seemed insurmountable and all I could imagine were the boatloads of money it would take to get us to one of the world’s greatest World Heritage sites.

 

Although we had always planned to go to South America we had originally planned a very different trip to Peru, Bolivia and Arica in Northern Chile. Our main goal was to see Cusco, Machu Picchu, Tiwanaku, La Paz and spend some beach days in Arica before making our way back to Lima to fly home. I still plan on that trip at some point but this wasn’t going to be the best way to spend our airline points so we revamped the our plans by looking at visiting further in South America like Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina. It would be more bang for our (airline points) buck.

 

Because I’m such a huge fan of Archeology and particularly megalithic sites, I immediately started researching sites we could visit. While Google came up with some that were close to Santiago, Chile and the other countries on our new itinerary, none could rival Machu Picchu or Tiwanaku except one… Easter Island.

 

 

A lesson in patience and Due diligence

 

 

Now if I’m to be honest, I never even knew Easter Island was part of Chile. It never occurred to me. Besides, even from Chile it was still a 5 hour flight out into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, so could we even afford the trip? Santiago was already booked. A quick Google search showed me that if we were going to go about 4 weeks out, which we weren’t because our trip was still about 6 months out, we absolutely could have afforded it. Round trip air was floating around $300.00 RT. The catch was that it was floating around $1200 to $1600 Round trip 6 months out when our trip was scheduled, which unfortunately was definitely out of our price range. LATAM Airlines was the only airline that did regular flights to Easter Island from Santiago so we couldn’t count on competition to bring down the price. I told myself I’d loosely keep an eye on airfare just in case. I went about planning our stay in Chile on the mainland.

 

As the months went by, I noticed an interesting trend when I would go to check on prices. The prices were always more expensive 3-9 months out and seemed to be cheaper 4-6 weeks out. I kept my fingers crossed that we’d be able to book a reasonable flight, as our trip got closer. About 5 weeks out the RT air from Santiago came down to about $330 RT. Afraid the price would go back up, I pulled the trigger on the tickets. I’m not sure if I would have waited another week if the price would have went up or down. Regardless, I’m glad I bought the tickets when I did because when it came time to board the plane, it was packed. Fortunately I had snagged plus seating for a nominal fee after we had booked by calling the airline. That extra legroom is nice on 5-hour flights. If I had waited a little while longer there’s a real good chance the flight would have been booked and we wouldn’t have been able to book another flight in the narrow window we would be in Chile.

 

A few things to keep in mind

 

If you’re planning to visit Easter Island as a US tourist know that you can only stay up to 30 days and not the 90 days you can stay in Chile because the island is considered a special territory. The island is small. You really only need a few days to see the entire island.

 

Some of the requirements to visit the island:

 

·      You need special permission to visit there. An actual invite letter provides proof of where you are staying. Obviously, we don’t know anyone there, but as it turns out, all that means is that you booked a place to stay. Once you book with an ‘approved’ hotel or hostel they will email you a letter. You have to book with a place approved by Senatur, which is Chiles official tourist department.

 

·      You’ll also need to fill out a Rapa Nui entry form (IRN) online, which you can find here. After filling out the IRN you’ll get a confirmation email that you’ll need to print so you can also present that to the PDI desk (Policía de Investgaciones) at the airport. They handle all the immigration paperwork. It helps to have all your ducks in a row before you get to the airport.

 

·      You’ll obviously need your passport and return ticket. No one-way tickets to Rapa Nui are permitted.

 

A great resource with step-by-step instructions is the Imagina Rapa Nui-Easter Island website. Once you have all these documents you’ll need to present at the Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Santiago. No one hassles you. We moved right through with the right papers.

 

 

A sacred destination

 

After a 5-hour flight we finally arrived in Easter Island at the Mataveri International Airport. It has a very long runway for such a small island. As it turns out, NASA chose the island as an emergency landing location for the Space Shuttle back in the day so the runway is the real deal. The terminal however, is really small. Some pilot’s struggle landing at some remote airports that have notoriously short runways but they definitely won’t have that problem at Mataveri.

 

Once in the airport you’ll notice a line off to the left, which I incorrectly assumed was the customs line. Even though technically we were travelling inside Chile, upon seeing the line, I thought maybe Easter Island was somehow still sort of it’s own thing and maybe they still wanted to put you through customs but that wasn’t the case. Instead, the line was for tickets to the National Park, which were $80.00 US per person. They’re only about $20.00 if you’re a Chilean citizen. There is also a place in town you can buy the tickets but it’s easier to just get them there. The majority of the island is a National Park so you’ll need the park tickets to see the majority of the archaeological sites.

 

I had also read they would stamp your passport with a special Moai stamp, which we both wanted, but unfortunately they stopped doing that at the airport. There is a however a special office in town that now does it. The person who sold us the park tickets was happy to direct us. 

 

Our host sent a driver to pick us up to take us to where we would be staying. Similar to Hawaii, our female driver gave us each one Polynesian style lei. She welcomed us in English, albeit with a thick Spanish accent. We drove off towards our cabana, amazed and humbled we had made it to this very sacred destination.