Last week, I jumped on a plane, left Santiago, flew 5 hours west, and landed in…Chile. Specifically, the island of Rapa Nui, which you may know as Easter Island.

It’s extremely in the middle of nowhere. Yet somehow in the timezone of Colorado. Seriously.

The general geography of South America continues to be disorienting for North Americans. Maybe they should’ve been called Northwest and Southeast America.

Rapa Nui is a very interesting place. Think half Hawaii and half Ireland. You get the tropical look, but it’s cooler and very green. And cows.

The moai are otherworldly as you’d expect. Just a weird thing to contemplate alongside your own place on this spinning sphere.

I took many photos of moai.

Rapa Nui is a small island. You can drive around the whole thing in 45 minutes. But only 8,000 people live there, mostly in one town on the West side of the island. So once you’re out of the tourist sites, you won’t see many other people. Which makes for great exploring in wide open spaces.