Aku Aku Turismo

Tomas was an incredible guide. He is charismatic, friendly, super knowledgeable, and very caring. Best tour I ever had, inside and outside of Rapa Nui.

We had 3 days of great tours with Aku Aku. Office staff helpful in planning our excursions and 3 great guides. Especially memorable was sunrise trip to 15 Moai.

Hice con ellos el tour de los 7 exploradores y el tour de la ruta de hotu matua. Ambos tours muy recomendados, nuestro guia fue Tomas, excelente la información y las explicaciones que nos dió.
Ambos tours fueron en español y en inglés. Los paisajes de la isla y la cultura Rapa Nui es bellísima. Recomendada la agencia, excelente servicio.

Recomiendo hacer tour con esta agencia!!

Their communication over email and whats up are prompt, the tour package is flexible.

According to Wikipedia, Aku Aku are the spirits of the dead that are nonetheless not immortal and can be disposed of. I wish I had read that first before booking.

I’m sorry to have to leave a review such as this one, but this was the worst tour experience I’ve had in three months of travel in South America and quite possibly of all time.

To start from the beginning: while I was trying to book the tours, Aku Aku responded sporadically, but after I paid the deposit they stopped responding entirely until the very last minute before I was due to travel. I almost called my bank to reverse the transaction because I thought I had been scammed.

I booked all three tours, unfortunately, so I can give a comprehensive overview. All the tours started late and ended early: the 3 hour tour for example started half an hour late and ended half an hour early, effectively making it a 2 hour tour. The “whole day” tour started and ended with nearly an hour chopped off either end.

As for the tours themselves, I had Tomas on day one and Jaime on days two and three. Tomas was reasonably friendly, but the moment we reached each site he literally hit the ground running. He would leave the group far behind and sit at the next stop and use his phone as if he was trying to avoid us. If Tomas was hard to approach however, Jaime was literally impossible. From the moment he met us, he refused to talk to us and wouldn’t even introduce himself. He looked like he hated every moment of being there, and kept giving one word answers (if any) and snapping at us. To say he was unfriendly would be to put it mildly.

Finally, I’m still giving my review two stars since *technically* I did cover all the stops. Not everyone in the group was so lucky - one entire family with a young kid was left behind at a stop on day two (the guide said he didn’t want to wait and they could find their own taxi if they wanted to catch up with us.)