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CHILE & EASTER ISLAND’S TAPATI FESTIVAL

May 16, 2008 on 2:11 pm | In Adventure Travel, Beachbooker, Cabinweb, Chile, Ecuador, Outdoors, Sailing, South America |

HORIZONS ARCHAEOLOGICAL & CULTURAL TRIPS, Inc.
PO Box 2546
San Anselmo, CA 94979 USA
(800) 552-4575
journey@farhorizons.com
http://www.farhorizons.com

CHILE & EASTER ISLAND’S TAPATI FESTIVAL
With Dr. Steven Fischer on Easter Island
January 31 - February 11, 2009

People frequently ask me to name my favorite destination. This is always a difficult question to answer but certainly Easter Island is in the Top Three! One of the most remote spots on the planet and surrounded by an endless ocean as blue as the sky, this tiny dot of land, called Rapa Nui by the Polynesian people who live there, is a unique open-air archaeological museum.

Nearly a thousand immense stone statues, called moai, gaze with brooding eyes over the gently rolling hills, hundreds of perplexing petroglyphs stand out from rock surfaces, and vibrant cave paintings depict brightly painted birds in flight. Unquestionably,

Easter Island is one of the most fascinating places I’ve ever been. But what draws me (and our travelers) back to the island repeatedly are the islanders themselves! There is something special about the inhabitants of this captivating place - almost every year amongst our travelers there is someone who has visited Rapa Nui at least once in the past.

Far Horizons proudly presents a 12-day trip to Chile and Easter Island that begins in Chile’s capital of Santiago, we will visit the Natural History Museum and Pre-Columbian Museum.
And we will travel to the lovely coastal city of Vina del Mar to enjoy a specially arranged private visit to the Rapanui Museum. Along the way, we will stop to enjoy a wine tour of one of Chile’s renowned, award-winning wineries. We have timed this trip to include the wonderful Tapati Festival, a celebration of the Rapa Nui culture.

Each day will dawn with new and exciting contests of strength and skill, while evenings will bring the mesmerizing melodies of Polynesian music as grass skirted dancers perform beneath the stars. It is a time of revelry and feasts, and of honoring the past with performances of cat’s cradle, the hypnotic chant used to hand down the island’s history from generation to generation.

The study leader on Easter Island is Dr. Steven Roger Fischer, Director of the Institute of Polynesian Languages and Literatures in Auckland, New Zealand, and an internationally recognized linguist and historian. He is an expert in pre-contact Eastern Polynesia, especially Easter Island, and the author of 16 books and over 100 scholarly articles, most dealing with Eastern Polynesia.

He is the publisher and editor of Rongorongo Studies: A Forum for Polynesian Philology, and a member of the editorial board of Rapa Nui Journal, the only international quarterly on Easter Island. He is the former regional Vice-President of the international Easter Island Foundation, and is fluent in Spanish and Rapanui (the language of Easter Island).

Dr. Fischer’s recent successful decipherment of Easter Island’s rongorongo script has won international acclaim.

See the complete itinerary with wonderful color images on the Far Horizons award-winning website - http://www.farhorizons.com/south-america/easteris.htm

TRIP DATES: January 31 - February 11, 2009 LAND COST: $7995.00. (Per person, double occupancy)