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We're back from our winter vacation in Chile (and also Buenos Aires).
We spent a couple days in Santiago and then flew to Easter Island.
We visited family in Buenos Aires and then went to Patagonia to hike in the beautiful national park called Torres del Paine.
It was marvelous to be in the southern hemisphere during the longest days of the year.
Santiago and Buenos Aires were both quite hot. Patagonia was cold and windy but very beautiful. Easter Island is a tropical island that resembles Hawaii. It is very small (only 18 km across). Most of the coastline is lava. There are 2 small but beautiful white sand beaches and then there are the moai. I think there are over 700 of them sprinkled over the island. Nobody knows exactly what their purpose was. One unexpected fact is that nearly all of them were facing inland rather than looking out to sea. All of them were toppled by the 19th century due to interclan rivalries. The story of how the island was populated is amazing considering that it is over 2000 miles from the nearest land. The history of what happened to the polynesian people who lived there.

I've posted 2 pictures of the moai.

The first is one group of moai at the beach. A couple of them have the topknot which was quarried in another place and then placed on the top of the moai.
The second is of the moai that were left in the quarry. After they were carved from the rock in the quarry they would be transported to some other part of the island and then raised on a platform called an ahu. Many of the moai were just left partially carved in the quarry.

Labels: Chile vacation