Travel: The haunting tale of paradise lost

The stark statues of Easter Island are mysterious monuments to the tragic story of a perplexing culture.

If you want to get away from it all, you can't go further than Easter Island. It is probably the world's most remote land mass - nearly 2,000km from anywhere, and 4,000km from the Chilean mainland. Early settlers called it the navel of the world, and the tiny island has always had a mystique irresistible to adventurous travellers. As a student, Che Guevara wanted to go, but gave up, defeated by the fact that, as recently as the Fifties there was only one sailing a year. Nowadays there are daily flights, and the only obstacle is cost.

Rapa Nui, as the inhabitants call it, has the vivid, Gauguinesque colours of the Pacific, and one small settlement, Hanga Roa. It is a beautiful, empty place strewn with volcanic rock, with only 3,000 inhabitants. Residents like to refer to the island as paradise. But they know that this is the place where paradise went wrong.

The triumph and the tragedy of the island are summed up by its stone statues, known as Moai. Rapa Nui is the Stonehenge of the Pacific: the massive stones were raised over centuries for mysterious motives, and by methods that the experts can only really guess at.

The Moai stand, singly or in lines, on stone altars, mostly with their backs to the sea. Their jutting jaws, pointed noses, and tight lips are clearly designed to speak of strength and resilience. Their enormous bulk is eloquent about the faith and determination of the people who quarried and somehow transported them to the shoreline. But there's something about the figures - the pot tummies, the oversized heads, the facial expression-- which gives the game away about human frailty, too.

Travelling round the island by Jeep, or with one of the excellent guided tours available, everyone heads for the sites where Moai have been re- erected. This is what the traveller has come to see: the familiar picture of up to 15 giants standing shoulder to shoulder against the sky. But if you're looking for that frisson that shaking hands with history brings, it's not the standing figures that have the greatest power to move you. It is the much greater number of sites where toppled Moai lie face down, stern mouths and proud noses literally biting the dust. This is not the vandalism of time, neglect and the eIements: these ruins are the product of something profoundly sad.

Estimates vary, but two communities colonised the island from some time after the 5th century. Theories abound as to where they had come from, but from the first, Easter Islanders didn't get on. A bloody power battle ended with one of the two groups being all but wiped out. Later, despite the challenges of land that was hard to cultivate and seas that were short of fish, the population swelled into thousands - and divided again, into 12 tribes. In a location where human survival was hard enough, these tribes chose not to co-operate, but compete.

Over-populated, and completely failing to find a way of living in peace or husbanding their environment, the inhabitants of Rapa Nui destroyed themselves and their heritage. The great civil war became a cull - armies were not only killed, but their human flesh was eaten. Understandably, local people are not keen to discuss the island's cannibalistic past. But there is no disguising the other repercussion of the war. Moai were wantonly, comprehensively destroyed, and the evidence litters the island's coastline.

If only the story ended there. Just as the islanders were busy wrecking their own culture, the outside world arrived to help. European colonial powers put Easter Island on the map in the 18th century, and after a number of violent encounters with foreign visitors, Rapa Nui fell prey to ruthless attacks by Peruvian slavers. About 80 per cent of those who were captured, died. Peru sent the survivors home. They carried smallpox back with them - with such devastating results that, in the end, there were perhaps as few as 100 of the original inhabitants left. Just 100 souls left to protect a history which depended on collective memory and an oral tradition.

Given all this, it is a miracle that there is still so much left. Manufacture of the Moai was abruptly ended by the war, and you can still visit the quarry where work on the last statues was interrupted. Mostly, the bodies are buried and only the heads stand visible, trapped masterpieces, still waiting to be born. Easter Island may only boast one town now, but once there were many settlements and traces of ingenious houses remain. With more knowledge of the sea than of cities, Rapa Nui modelled its shelters on upside-down boats, and you can still see the oval foundations. The Rapa Nui language is alive and defiant despite attempts to impose Spanish on the islanders, and a musical tradition lives on.

Something of Rapa Nui culture has survived, despite the near annihilation of the native population, and unsympathetic control of the island. Last century, Chile annexed Rapa Nui and rented it to a UK sheep-farming company which enclosed the people, leaving the sheep to roam the island. Luckily for British visitors, islanders blame the Chilean overlords for this scandal.

The islanders are rightly anxious about Rapa Nui's future: Easter Island's economy depends solely on tourism, but too many tourists would be the death of its individual culture. Airlines' plans to increase the number of flights to the island are the subject of constant, nervous speculation. At present there is hardly a two-storey building on the island. Hotels are simple and owned by local people. Pedro Edmunds Paoa, the mayor, believes it can't last. "Money is a terrible temptation," he says. "I lived 12 years in that country [Chile] where money is made and I don't want that for my island. But you can't stop it. There will be high rises here." Nikko Haoa Cardinali, who part-owns one of the classiest hotels on the island, agrees. His best dream for Rapa Nui in 50 years time? "That I never see a big air terminal here." He's a campaigner who works to keep island traditions alive, but it's hard to hold on to the island's youth. He expects his two children to leave.

So, if you're going, go soon. Go for the tranquillity, the wonderful, untranslatable local fish, for the natural beauty of volcanic craters. Go to wonder at the Moai, and, above all, to applaud the dignity of a people that have suffered and survived so much. But stay away if you want the kind of tourist comforts that would destroy this fragile place.

There are a couple of approaches to Easter Island. The faster is via Santiago in Chile, which you can reach direct from Gatwick on British Airways (0345 222111); there are onward flights on LAN Chile and Qantas. The other is via Papeete in Tahiti, accessible via Paris or Los Angeles. Either way, you can expect to pay up to pounds 1,000 for the cheapest return flight. Possibly the best-value approach is to buy a round-the-world trip on British Airways/Qantas that allows travel via Easter Island; a good discount travel agent will be able to advise