Moais, Long Ears, Short Ears, wars, birdmen, Kon Tiki & an old jeep - in the most remote place in the world

8pm Fri 18 Apr: We're in busy Chilean beach town Vina del Mar on a chilly autumn evening - so I've got time to scratch my head over one of the world's biggest mysteries, in the most isolated place on the globe: Easter Island.
The planet's most remote inhabited island, famous for its giant Moai heads, is 3,700km west of South America and 1,900km east of Pitcairn Island (population 50 and of Mutiny on the Bounty fame; see French Polynesia blog below). In fact, EI, or Rapa Nui in Polynesian, is so in the middle of nowhere that, although it's a Chilean territory, it's actually in Oceania.
The stone Moais, up to 10m tall, stood on the 245 ceremonial centres which once packed this tiny 6km x 20km volcanic speck.
How on earth did people from Indonesia & the Philippines first travel here 1,200 years ago? Why did their society split into the Long Ears and Short Ears? How did they carve moais using not chisels and hammers but blunt rocks...and then move them up to 18km? Why did their civilisation destroy itself in wars which toppled every moai? And how did the even-more-mysterious birdman culture take over?
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/easterisland.shtml and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island for more on this fascinating, baffling place.
For me, the most amazing thing is that the moais, which resemble the remains of a culture like the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, were knocked down fewer than 200 years ago.
And the birdman cult - the real deal, not Alcatraz - sent men tumbling down cliffs, rafting to a wild island, searching for bird eggs, with the winner living in a cave for a year, until 1867.
This is the story which the amazing Thor Heyerdahl (of Kon Tiki fame; http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4397210,00.html) tackled by arguing the vast Pacific's islands were settled not by Asians, but by South Americans.
Something really amazing actually happened on EI.
We hired a jeep as old as the moais themselves and bumped down one of the island's many abysmal tracks on a day when it had rained continuously since 8am.
Walking round Ahu Akivi's seven moais by ourselves in the rain, the sun surprisingly ducked beneath a cloud over the sea, flooding the statues in sunset light and creating a double rainbow (one thick, paint-like), arcing perfectly over the moais.
It was absolutely unexpected and, genuinely, one of the most breathtaking moments in my life.
Alongside that time Lincoln City beat Grimsby, of course.
The Easter Island photos which blog readers may recognise are of Ahu Tongariki, a line-up of 15 moais on a plain between two volcanos, backed by crashing Pacific waves, and Rano Raraku, the bewildering quarry of 600 moais either poking out from green hillside or peering over a giant crater lake.
Being the most isloated place in the world, EI is a bit of a country bumpkin place.
This really hit home on a night out, which made Ritzy in Lincoln, the Watershed in Wimbledon and that awful 10p-a-pint, late-night Irish pub whose name escapes me in Southampton, seem like a Ferrero Rocher ambassador's reception.
Arriving at EI's (only) pub with our nice Chilean friend Mariana, locals including pensioners were either slumped (asleep or semi-conscious) over their tables, or dancing wobbily to a so-called DJ's ridiculous song selection. First was synth-pop panpipes, then salsa, then techno, then remixed Erasure.
At least we didn't come to the most remote inhabited place in the world to go clubbing.