The setting
On the grassland, outside Hanga Roa
Explora Rapa Nui stands on the hill of Te Miro Oone, in the south-east of the island, about 8 km (5 mi) from Hanga Roa. Around it is open grassland, a few stands of trees, stone walls, and the ocean on almost every side.
That distance from town is the point. Hanga Roa is where the island’s shops, restaurants and airport are, ten minutes away by car. At the lodge the evenings are quiet, the sky is dark, and the day starts closer to the trailheads and the sites of the south coast.
The ground it stands on had no archaeological remains and was not used for farming, and the native vegetation around it was left in place. On an island where almost every coast holds an ahu, where a building goes matters.
José Cruz Ovalle · 2007
Wood, stone and the line of the ahu
The lodge opened in December 2007 as Posada de Mike Rapu. On Rapa Nui only islanders may own land, so Explora built it with Mike Rapu, a Rapanui who contributed the land and whose name the lodge carried at first.
The architect was José Cruz Ovalle, who had worked on Explora’s first lodge in Torres del Paine. Here he set a central building on the hill and ran the rooms out from it to the north and south in long, linked volumes. Explora compares their arrangement to a line of moai on an ahu. Inside, it is natural wood, low walls of volcanic stone, and tall windows that frame grass and ocean rather than the building itself.
Thirty rooms
Varúa rooms and Raa suites
There are twenty-six Varúa rooms of 32 m² (345 sq ft) and four Raa suites of 44 m² (474 sq ft). All have natural wood interiors, a king or two twin beds, heating and a jetted bathtub, and most look out to the Pacific across the grassland.
The suites add space and a sitting area by the window rather than a different kind of stay. The rooms are calm and plain on purpose. Most of the day is spent outside, and what matters at night is silence and a view of the dark.
The evenings
Tomorrow is chosen at dinner
Every evening, guests sit down with a guide and choose the next day’s exploration. Explora runs more than thirty on the island, in small groups, from easy to demanding, half-day or full-day: walks to the Rano Raraku quarry, bike rides to old settlements, the coast by kayak or with a snorkel.
Meals mix Polynesian and Chilean cooking, with Chilean wine. There is a bar, an outdoor pool and hot tub facing the ocean, a sauna, and the Hare Vaka spa. Treatments are extra; the rest is part of the stay.
Planning
How a stay here actually works
Te Miro Oone, south-east Rapa Nui, about 8 km (5 mi) from Hanga Roa and ten minutes by car. The lodge sits on its own hill of grassland, between town and the sites of the south coast.
This is a lodge outside town, not a hotel in Hanga Roa. A taxi or a bike gets you to the village or the Anakena and Ovahe beaches on your own.
Explora Rapa Nui is a way of seeing Easter Island slowly, with a guide and a plan for each day, and coming back to the quiet at the end of it.
For the island, start with Easter Island. For the ceremonial village on the crater rim, read Orongo, on the rim of Rano Kau. For the first Explora lodge, read Explora Patagonia.