Luxury at last on Easter Island

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, a volcanic speck in the South Pacific, is famous for its moai, but has never been known for its hotels. Until now. Posada de Mike Rapu, the camouflaged accommodation opened last month by the Chilean wilderness specialists Explora, stands out among the ubiquitous local guesthouses.

Its design whispers rather than shouts, gradually revealing itself as the latest iconic structure on one of the world’s most remote holiday destination. Its sinuous curls and swirls, echoing the lines of the island’s historic boat shaped dwellings, rise organically from the burnished ground. Two wings with a total of 30 rooms and suites ark away from a futuristic core of floor-to-ceiling windows, and open-sided decks.

Following Explora’s mantra of simple, pared-down luxury, it has textured concrete walls and bathrooms of Chilean pine and Brazilian slate. Windows offer widescreen panoramas of Pacific surf, distant volcanoes and epic sky. If you can’t write that difficult second symphony here, you can’t write it anywhere.

Of course, the Posada, hyped as the greenest hotel in South America, is far from the first epic construction on Rapa Nui. Excuse my Ladybird book approach to anthropology, but 1,500 years ago Polynesians were pretty handy with a hammer and chisel. Over a millennium they knocked up 887 increasingly artistic moai to harness the protective power of ancestral spirits.

Sadly, they didn’t just build. They also destroyed. As the population grew to 10,000, tropical forests were hacked down for agriculture. And then things went wrong. Disastrously wrong. No trees meant no fertile topsoil, no birds to eat and no wood for canoes. Islanders couldn’t fish - or escape. It sparked an orgy of inter-clan fighting with a side serving of statue smashing and cannibalism. Imported disease and slave raids hastened the apocalypse and by 1888, when Chile colonised Rapa Nui, only 111 people remained.

But the island has bounced back. It has 4,000 inhabitants, healthy imported trees, and several moai have been re-erected on altars. They are the big tourist draw - and Explora reveals them brilliantly over several days’ hiking and cycling. Its young local guides, all of whom could model Oakley sunglasses, blend archaeological research and oral tradition to unravel the history of their doomed relatives.

Guided by Singa, a surfer with an enviably chiselled moai profile, we tramped up tracks where newly carved heads were once “walked” on wood frames towards their altars. Fallen statues, many overgrown with guava, littered the route.

Our target was Rano Raraku, the volcano dubbed the Moai Factory, whose slopes are dotted with crazily tilting sculptures like guests at a fabulously boozy party. It’s home to a vast optical puzzle. After staring intensely at a towering wall of hardened volcanic ash I started to spot noses, long ears and distinctive foreheads. They were half-finished moai, still waiting to be liberated from the volcano - monuments to the day Rapa Nui society imploded.

It was mesmerising stuff: a history lesson taught with ancient artefacts up to 22m (72ft) high in a dramatic outdoor classroom. And like the best education, academia has been fused with physical activity by Explora. An exquisite alfresco lunch of tuna ceviche laid the foundations for a swim in the emerald briny off Anakena beach.

On other days we yomped over the strangely silent moorland. Strewn with thistles, populated with horses - 16,000 for 4,000 islanders - and caressed with subtropical breezes, it was a bizarre blend of Scotland and Polynesia. But then a simple act from Singa reminded me that I was far from home. Sticking my camera into a small opening, he popped the flash. I glanced at the screen and winced. Sitting on a rocky ledge in the ancestral cave was a human skull.

Twice we stretched our legs to scale steep-sided volcanoes. The vast bowl of Rano Kau, an enormous cauldron of medicinal plants and murky water, once hosted an adrenaline event worthy of Pepsi Max. The annual birdman race, an attempt to replace tribal in-fighting with athletic democracy, decided which clan governed the island. Painted competitors sprinted down the near-vertical volcanic wall, dived into the Pacific and swam two kilometres to Motu Nui islet. After waiting for the migratory manutara bird to lay, they raced the eggs back to the king. Red Bull is considering backing a modern birdman - although it’s unlikely to offer the original prize of a pale-skinned virgin.

Rapa Nui just doesn’t do normal - even the fishing was exotic. We tied strips of raw fish to volcanic rocks to make a sashimi bomb that exploded when it hit the seabed - the lure for giant tuna, which, I was alarmed to hear, we would wrestle into our tiny boat on a hand line. Thankfully we didn’t register a single bite.

Still, the very fact that we were out there would have pleased Edgard Hereveri. As president of the Chamber of Tourism, he wants to take pressure off the archaeological sites and develop other attractions, including fishing, surfing and boat trips to the newly created marine reserve.

While Hereveri welcomes Explora, with its respect for the island’s ecology and culture, he is concerned about the knock-on effects of the new hotel. “It’s the first,” he says. “The gate is open. We’re facing pressure for more development from outside investors.”

Plans for a casino were abandoned after a fight last year, but three new hotels with non-island owners are planned, including one on the empty north coast. With tourism rising by 20per cent each year, Hereveri wants the Chilean Government to stop treating Rapa Nui like “a golden credit card” and establish laws to protect its traditions and culture.

“The island has collapsed once before from too many people. We need infrastructure and regulations to cope with the effects of foreign investment. Rapa Nui needs control. Lose it and we become just another Tahiti or Hawaii.”

Need to know

Ian Belcher travelled with cazenove+loyd (020-7384 2332, www.cazloyd.com), which offers 12 days in Chile and Argentina, including explora en Rapa Nui on Easter Island, and travel to the Atacama desert to cross the Andes into Salta, Argentina, with a final night in Buenos Aires, from £3,500pp, including full board (except in Buenos Aires), transfers and all flights.

Reading Chile & Easter Island (Lonely Planet, £15.99)