I was dozing in my seat after five hours on the airplane when my friend sitting next to me grabbed my arm, pointing excitedly out the tiny porthole window. "Look!" she said. The distinctive triangle shape of Rapa Nui was spread out below us, a pale green patch in the dark blue ocean. The plane circled around once, offering a beautiful view of the volcanoes, sandy beaches, and scrubby brush that cover most of the island before coming in to land at Mataveri International Airport, the most remote airport in the world.
Rapa Nui is 3,512 km (2,182 miles) from Chile, which is the closest land that is not another island. That's 2.5 times the distance I traveled to get from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago!
Because Rapa Nui is so isolated, it is very expensive to ship things to the island, like the fuel for the generator that the islanders use to create electricity. The people of Rapa Nui have to rely on their unique environment for food and water. This means that many things come from the sea, and, just like their ancestors, the Rapa Nui people of today have learned how to farm the somewhat barren grasslands of the island to grow the food they need.
