Looking from NW to SE at Usuki 臼杵 and Usuki Bay 臼杵湾, Unnamed peninsula, Tsukumi Bay 津久見湾, Kannonzaki 観音崎, and Hoto Island 保戸島, Ōita

The twelfth day of my trip to Peru and Easter Island. The South Island tour organised by the hotel and led by Chiris. Ahu Tongaiki, probably one of the most photographed Ahu’s on the Island and the biggest. It contains 15 moai that have been recently restored after the Ahu was destroyed in the 1960’s by a Tsunami. On the approach to the Ahu you pass by a lonely moai know as the “Travelling Moai” due to the fact it went on a tour around Japan a few years ago. The size of the 15 statues is immense and with them being on top of their platform increases their scale as you look up at them. There is also some petroglyphs carved into the ground in front of the Ahu showing a turtle. Ahu Tongariki is the largest ahu on Rapa Nui/Easter Island (a Chilean island in the Pacific). Its moai were toppled during the island's civil wars and in the twentieth century the ahu was swept inland by a tidal wave. It has since been restored and has fifteen moai including an 86 tonne moai that was the heaviest ever erected on the island. Ahu Tongariki is close to Rano Raraku and Poike in the Rapa Nui National Park. All the moai here face sunset during Summer Solstice, and their backs therefore face sunrise during Winter Solstice.[citation needed] Ahu Tongariki was substantially restored in the 1990s by a multidisciplinary team headed by archaeologists Claudio Cristino (Director) and Patricia Vargas (Co-director executive team), in a five year project carried out under an official agreement of the Chilean Government with Tadano Lt. and the University of Chile. Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui, Spanish: Isla de Pascua) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile annexed in 1888, Easter Island is widely famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within the Rapa Nui National Park. In recent times the island has served as a cautionary tale about the cultural and environmental dangers of overexploitation. Ethnographers and archaeologists now argue that the introduction of diseases carried by European colonizers and the slave raiding[4] that devastated the population in the 1800s had a much greater social than environmental impact. To see my full travelblog from my trip to Peru and Easter Island visit: www.travelshorts.com/travel-blogs/peru-and-easter-island-...

The fourteenth day of my trip to Peru and Easter Island. I then drove to Ahu Tongariki passing horses, pigs and other animals along the way. At Ahu Tongariki I take lots of pictures of the Moai and me pratting about with them. Ahu Tongaiki, probably one of the most photographed Ahu’s on the Island and the biggest. It contains 15 moai that have been recently restored after the Ahu was destroyed in the 1960’s by a Tsunami. On the approach to the Ahu you pass by a lonely moai know as the “Travelling Moai” due to the fact it went on a tour around Japan a few years ago. The size of the 15 statues is immense and with them being on top of their platform increases their scale as you look up at them. There is also some petroglyphs carved into the ground in front of the Ahu showing a turtle. Ahu Tongariki is the largest ahu on Rapa Nui/Easter Island (a Chilean island in the Pacific). Its moai were toppled during the island's civil wars and in the twentieth century the ahu was swept inland by a tidal wave. It has since been restored and has fifteen moai including an 86 tonne moai that was the heaviest ever erected on the island. Ahu Tongariki is close to Rano Raraku and Poike in the Rapa Nui National Park. All the moai here face sunset during Summer Solstice, and their backs therefore face sunrise during Winter Solstice.[citation needed] Ahu Tongariki was substantially restored in the 1990s by a multidisciplinary team headed by archaeologists Claudio Cristino (Director) and Patricia Vargas (Co-director executive team), in a five year project carried out under an official agreement of the Chilean Government with Tadano Lt. and the University of Chile. Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui, Spanish: Isla de Pascua) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile annexed in 1888, Easter Island is widely famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within the Rapa Nui National Park. In recent times the island has served as a cautionary tale about the cultural and environmental dangers of overexploitation. Ethnographers and archaeologists now argue that the introduction of diseases carried by European colonizers and the slave raiding[4] that devastated the population in the 1800s had a much greater social than environmental impact. To see my full travelblog from my trip to Peru and Easter Island visit: www.travelshorts.com/travel-blogs/peru-and- easter-island-2010/