6 Best Sights in Hanga Roa, Easter Island

This small museum, Museo Antropológico Padre Sebastián Englert, is named for the German priest who dedicated his life to improving conditions on Rapa Nui and who is buried beside the church. It provides an excellent summary of the history of Easter Island and its way of life, as well as its native flora and fauna. Here, too, is one of the few female moai on the island and the replica of a coral eye found during the reconstruction of an ahu at Playa Anakena (the original is in storage after an attempted robbery). Texts are in Spanish and English. Note that the museum can easily overcrowd given its small size.

Colorful fishing boats bob up and down in the water at Hanga Roa's tiny jetty. Here you may see fisherfolk hauling in the day's tuna catch, or a boatload of divers returning from a trip to neighboring islets. Nearby is Ahu Tautira, a ceremonial platform with a restored moai.

Hanga Roa's colorful walled cemetery occupies a prime position overlooking the Pacific and is visually unlike most. With artificial flower arrangements, white tombstones, and even some replica moai, the cemetery has a cheerful feeling. The central cross is erected on a pukao, the reddish topknot or hat that likely topped a moai at some point. The cemetery keeps expanding toward the ocean, but by 2022, the newly deceased will have to be buried elsewhere, as it will likely be full. Some Rapa Nui bury family members around the island, such as near Playa Ovahe, so be respectful should you come across burial sites.

Missionaries might have brought Christianity to Easter Island, but the Rapa Nui people brought their own beliefs to Christianity. Find the two intertwined in this white church on the hill overlooking Hanga Roa. The paintings of the Via Crucis on the walls are what you would find in any Catholic church, but the wood figures have a clear Rapa Nui flavor, and one of the altars rests on a block of local volcanic stone. At the first Mass on Sunday morning at 9 am, hymns are sung in Rapa Nui.

Hanga Roa has only two tiny beaches: Playa Pea, a stretch of sand near the bay where surfers go to catch waves, and another small beach on the northern edge of the town with a sea pool for swimming. Both are popular among local families with small children. Amenities: food and drink. Best for: snorkeling; sunset; swimming. 

The ancient ceremonial center of Tahai, where much of the annual Tapati Rapa Nui festival takes place, was restored in 1968 by archaeologist William Mulloy, who is buried nearby. Tahai consists of three separate ahus facing a wide plaza that once served as a community meeting place. You can still find the foundations of the boat-shape dwellings where religious and social leaders once lived. In the center is Ahu Tahai, which holds a single weathered moai. To the left is Ahu Vai Uri, where five moai, one little more than a stump, cast their stony gaze over the island. Also here is Ahu Kote Riku, with a splendid moai and red topknot intact; this is the only moai on the island to have its gleaming white eyes restored.

This is an especially good place to come to see the island's blazing yellow sunsets.