Santiago Wine Tour & Easter Island

Welcome to Chile, where Easter Island is located and is internationally famous for its succulent red wine! This tour will take you into the best wine-growing areas in Chile with excellent wine tasting and venture to the remote Easter Island to explore the mysterious history and culture of Rapa Nui.

When you arrive in Santiago, a private transfer will take you to the hotel for check-in. The rest of the day is at leisure. If you are energetic, why not hang out around the famous Plaza de Armas? Surrounded by historic buildings and overflowed with busker performance, it is where you can immerse yourself into the passionate South American culture.

Extreme geography makes Chile's fertile ground for wine growing and most of its best-known wine regions are situated surrounding Santiago, so you can easily make them for daytime travel.

The first one you will visit is Casablanca Valley, one of the youngest wine-growing areas in Santiago. The location close to the coast of the Pacific Ocean makes the climate cooler than most other wine regions. It is this cooler climate that makes Casablanca's white wines stand out among their local competitors. Within the boutique winery Casa Marin in the small village of Lo Abarca, you will take a tour of the grounds and cap off the excursion with a tasting of premium wines.

Continue your wine tour to Colchagua Valley, known for producing full-bodied red wine varietals like the country's famed carménère. The prestigious winery ViñaViuManent in this area, about two hours drive from Santiago, is set in extensive and beautiful gardens dotted with colonial architecture. Here, you will take an antique horse-drawn carriage for a scenic ground tour and taste several fine wines.

The tour today will combine with a visit to another winery, Viña Montes, in the nearby Apalta Valley. This large modern winery will impress you with its amphitheater-style barrel room, with around 1,000 barrels lying there listening to bizarre Gregorian chants.

This morning, a private transfer will take you to the airport for the flight to Easter Island. It is one of the most remote inhabited lands in the world and surrounded by three volcanos in the shape of a triangle. In this world away from the hustle and bustle, you can hear the sound of waves rushing in the Pacific Ocean and learn about the mysterious history and culture of Rapanui.

On arrival at the island, your hotel staff will meet you and escort you to the hotel. You will have the rest of the day to explore this island at your own pace.

The highlight of the island is many huge stone statues, ranging in height from 3 to 10 meters, with an average height of 4.5 meters. It is known as moai. They were made by the indigenous Rapanui people, who are said to have settled here since 800 AD.

Today you will take a full-day Seat-In-Coach excursion to discover the secrets of these huge humanoid stone sculptures. Why the round stone, TePito Kura, close to the largest Ahu TePito Kura, can affect the direction of the compass? Why were nearly 400 stone statues abandoned among the rolling hillsides of RanoRaraku? Why is Ahu Tongariki the ideal place to enjoy the sunrise especially from December 21st to March 21st? You can also visit the Ahu Akahang to know what the Easter Island looked like when Europeans discovered it, and sunbathe on the sandy beach of Anakena.

At a certain moment in history, the old belief represented by the statues of Moai was gradually replaced by the new belief, that is, the Creator God Make Make. To commemorate Make Make, they celebrated the Bird-man Competition. All contestants needed to get the first egg of the season from the offshore islet Motu Nui, and the winner was declared the Bird-man of that year, which was an important position.

You will spend the whole morning exploring the sacred village of Orongo, where the birdman worship ceremony was held. Through the circular buildings made of volcanic stone and rocks painted with bird-man images, you will get an insight into this ceremonial event.

In the afternoon, go to Ahu Akivi, the most enigmatic moai on the island. Different from the other stone statues, standing by the sea with their backs to the sea, it is the only group of statues located inland facing the sea. From here, you can take a short hike to two other archaeological sites: the cave of Ana TePahu and the Puna Pau volcano. The latter is the place where Pukao hats were extracted and carved.