As the first commercial plane descended on Chile's Easter Island on August 4 after 872 days of closure due to the pandemic, passengers crowded the windows to photograph it as if they had encountered a species in the middle of a safari. only.
In many respects, it was so.
To the singularity of being one of the most isolated inhabited corners of the planet and its enigmatic sculptures carved in volcanic stone, it was added that for two and a half years the cases of covid within the territory were counted on the fingers of one hand.
Forced to cut off its economic mainstay, tourism, its inhabitants became completely isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
It was a bubble of 7,000 people that was punctured last Thursday.
And on that island of ancient traditions also called Rapa Nui (the navel of the Earth),
Sitting on the deck of a limply rocking wooden boat, Uko Tongariki Tuki watches the sunrise with the Rano Raraku quarry behind him.
“The sea is our patio.
Where you see water, we see roads, our main source of food”, says the head of the Tourism Department.
When the island closed, the tourists disappeared and, with them, the source of income for three quarters of the population.
Practically no one cultivated the land anymore and there was a significant shortage of products.
“Tourism had us blinded.
People said: tourism brings money and with the money you buy eggs.
What am I going to have chickens for?” explains Julio Hotus, 60, general secretary of the Council of Elders.
Uko Tongariki Tuki, director of Tourism of Easter Island (Chile).sofia yanjari
The people, then, went to the sea to eat.
A deep blue sea in which you can easily see 30 meters away.
Divers say that once you dive into the waters of Easter Island, the rest of the world seems black and white.
Planting also began.
Today there are 1,200 urban gardens thanks to the help of the municipality.
“We reconnected with each other.
To go to family events.
To cook curanto (culinary preparation with spiritual dimensions), to fish, to dive, to walk around the island.
We went back to places that had been occupied by tourists,” describes Uko.
The guide Luis Reyes, 48, assures that before the pandemic, tourism was out of control.
“We lacked days of the week to serve people.
The last year before the closure, of 365 days, I only freed 18″, he recalls.
That does not mean that, says another guide, his hair stood on end with emotion when he saw the first plane land.
One of the sustainable orchards created by the inhabitants of the island due to the loss of the main livelihood produced by tourism due to the covid-19 pandemic. Sofia Yanjari
Two weekly flights
For this month of August, the Latam airline has resumed the route with two weekly flights.
The idea is to gradually add others.
Before the pandemic, there were 10. To those we had to add charter flights and cruise ships.
Easter Island, with 164 square kilometers of surface, received 156,000 annual visitors, which translated into 120 million dollars (119 million euros) for its economy.
More information
Easter Island shows again its mysterious heritage after two years of isolation
"We were wrong, we were going the wrong way and we realized that with the pandemic," says Mayor Pedro Edmunds, a figure so esteemed that, if possible, they would already erect his own statue.
“We came to the conclusion that tourism blinded us.
We were being a bit hypocritical in telling what the island was like without living it ourselves,” he adds in front of the seven upright moais of Ahu Nau Nau, on the paradisiacal Anakena beach, one of the 13 of its 24 tourist attractions open to visitors.
To fully reopen the world's largest open-air museum requires resources that the island does not have.
Edmunds is in talks with the Government to act as a guarantee and obtain a loan from international banks.
Residents of Easter Island await the arrival of new tourists at the airport. Sofia Yanjari
Tourism has been a springboard for new generations.
Thanks to this solid source of income, many young people have been able to educate themselves in universities on the mainland and travel.
“To achieve a balance we are working with the different players in the industry.
In these meetings we ask ourselves if 14 flights a week are necessary or if it is responsible to open a new hotel”, describes Uko.
The mayor is clear that the new stage must be based on sustainability.
The optimization of water and energy, but also of human resources.
During the pandemic, about 2,000 inhabitants left the island, most of them from the
conti
, as the islanders refer to Chileans living on the mainland.
"Before we looked for solutions to our problems abroad, now we want to train and specialize our people," adds Edmunds.
The “tourist” identity
For Hotus, a Rapa Nui councilor, the island is divided into two types of people: those from a more popular neighborhood, who are more rooted in traditions, and those who have more contact with outsiders and the tourist business community.
“It is so much that tourism is shaping the identity of the Rapanui people.
Tourism tells us how we should function.
We are not a tourist proposition, we are an answer,” he says over a lunch of fresh tuna at the seaside restaurant Topa Ra'a, with waiters eager to serve visitors again.
The problems with which the people of Easter Island deal, such as violence and the consumption of alcohol or drugs, enumerates the psychologist Domingo Izquierdo, "have a lot to do with an identity crisis, a loss of roots."
"These are consequences of a process that has ended up building a tourist identity, above its ancestral essence," says Izquierdo, who cares for patients through a municipal program in a house open to the people, where therapies can be developed under a avocado or with your feet in the sand.
Julio Hotus, Secretary General of the Easter Island Council of Elders. Sofia Yanjari
Hotus, who for years taught traditional education classes, is approached by parents asking him to teach their children about culture.
“I answer that they have it inside the house, in the history of her ancestors.
They just want them to play guitar and dance.
Everything artistic-tourist is associated with culture, but it is much more than that”.
One of the great battle flags of the Council of Elders, which watches over the rights of the Rapanui people before the Chilean State, is the preservation of their language, of Polynesian origin.
Fewer and fewer young people learn it.
In their own homes they prioritize Spanish or English because it is "more useful" to them.
Only 10% of those under the age of 18 speak Rapanui, according to UNESCO.
"That was an imposition of the dominant culture, which is Chilean, and our problem was that we believed it," says the councilman.
Polynesian dances are one of the most demanded tourist attractions.
The energetic traditional dances are able to revive the spirit of the most exhausted traveler at the end of the day.
Men and women, with their painted and feathered bodies, move to such a rhythm that it seems that they have the drums inside their hips and the ukulele on their knees and wrists.
Maima Rapu, instructor at the Kari Kari cultural dance academy on Easter Island. Sofia Yanjari
Maima Rapu, 42, is a teacher at the Kari Kari cultural ballet, the oldest on the island and the only academy that continued to teach during the pandemic.
“For us, dance and percussion are a means to interest young people in picking up their language, which we also teach them, because you can't really dance if you don't understand what is being sung,” she explains.
Last Friday, the Kari Kari ballet was finally able to perform again in front of the public.
Among the spectators were some of the 258 people who arrived on the first commercial flight, with capacity for 300, according to figures from Latam.
Among the passengers were relatives of the islanders, parents who had not seen their children in more than a year and foreigners who had the ticket since 2020. All were greeted with cheers and applause from a group that approached the Mataveri international airport, and with cheerful flower leis delivered by the reception team.
The Rapanui, eager to see new faces and revive their economy after one of the longest quarantines in the world, have reopened their doors with the intention of changing their relationship with tourism.
And, those who know this 100% indigenous territory in depth, assure that there is nothing that can be done against the intention of the island.
The moais of Tongariki, on August 5, after the reopening of the island.
sophia yanjari
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