Easter Island – Vinapu

International Travel, Photography, South America

My wife and I recently returned from travels in South America. We ended our trip with a few days in Easter Island, exploring its many sites. This week I thought I’d share some of these sites.

Vinapu is an archaeological complex located on the edge of the south coast of the island, where the airport runway ends. Here one comes across a way of working the stone that does not exist in any other part of Polynesia and that has given rise to many theories about the origins of the population of the island, which relate it to the Inca culture of South America.

You can now purchase select prints of mine online:
https://society6.com/jgtravels

Easter Island – Rano Raraku

International Travel, Photography, South America

My wife and I recently returned from travels in South America. We ended our trip with a few days in Easter Island, exploring its many sites. This week I thought I’d share some of these sites.

Rano Raraku is the quarry where almost all of the 1,000 moai statues that have been found on Easter Island were sculpted. Dozens of stone heads stand out from the ground and as you look up to the top, there are many holes and figures cut out on the rocky surface of the mountain. Here the moai were carved and then they were taken to the ahu or ceremonial platforms, distributed along the entire coast, to honor the memory of the ancestors.

You can now purchase select prints of mine online:
https://society6.com/jgtravels

Easter Island – Ahu Tongariki

International Travel, Photography, South America

My wife and I recently returned from travels in South America. We ended our trip with a few days in Easter Island, exploring its many sites. This week I thought I’d share some of these sites.

Ahu Tongariki is the largest ahu (stone platform) on Easter Island. Its moai statues were toppled during the island’s civil wars and in the twentieth century the ahu was swept inland by a tsunami. It has since been restored and has fifteen moai including an 86 ton moai that was the heaviest ever erected on the island. All the moai here face sunset during Summer Solstice.