The Inca Wall

 

From 1955 to 1956, famed explorer Thor Heyerdahl lived on Easter Island doing archaeological research aiming to prove his theory that Peruvians from the east first colonized the island, with the Polynesians coming along later.  So that morning, our group set out for the archaeological site of Ahu Vinapu, where there is a famous back wall of the apu that resembles the stonework found in many places in Peru.  Heyerdahl felt that this reinforced his claim that ancient people from South America could reach Easter Island by boat. 

Here is the Ahu Vinapu wall, photos and a video.

Now a sampling of walls in and around Cusco Peru.

BTW—both Freddy Silva and Robert Schoch write about the seafaring cultures that sailed around the Pacific before the dramatic rise in sea level at the end of the last ice age, when all of the islands were much larger than they are today.  So perhaps Heyerdahl was not far off, except for his timing!  (by thousands of years)

On our last full day of the trip, we were offered several excursions that we could pick from.  Four others and I chose to go on a 4.5 mile hike to 3 different “caves” which were along the coast.  Now, I had been in caves before, no problem, but these were lava tubes.  I had been in lava tubes before, and really didn’t like doing that for a variety of reasons.  So I did the first one, but skipped the other 2.  Luckily, we were outfitted with hard hats and flashlights, which were definitely needed.    

This is the terrain that we hiked through.  It reminded me of the coastal area of Hawaii big island.

The highlight for me was a visit to Ahu Te Peu, which is a very important but unrestored ahu.  It looks the way it did when it was abandoned.  Here are some toppled moai.  Note the difference between the lighter brown of the volcanic tuff of the moai with the darker and harder local volcanic stone of the ahu.

As we walked around to the back side (ocean facing) of the ahu, we encountered a really nice megalithic wall, similar to the Ahu Vinapu wall. 

From what I could tell, very few ahu walls on the island were of this quality.  That may not mean that someone else built them.  Another mystery!