FUN-travel: New 7 Wonders of the World Runner Up: Easter Island, Chile

July 1, 2013 by  

Easter Island FUN-facts

  1. Dutch explorers landed on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722, and named it Easter Island.Easter Island, Chile 192
  2. There are 887 “moai” stone statues – the biggest at 32 ft high and weighing 82 tons.
  3. They were carved with stone chisels between 1100 & 1680 AD and took a team of 5 -6 men one year to finish.
  4. Over half of all the statues are located around the quarry at Rano Raraku.
  5. It’s one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world and a long way to the middle of nowhere. 2200 miles from Chile, it takes 5 hours by plane, and 5 days by ship.
  6. 15 miles long by 7.5 miles at the widest and a total of 63 square miles.
  7. Easter Island is pretty primitive and our best guess is probably what Hawaii was like in the 60’s.
  8. Hanga Roa is the only town and has paved roads. Most of the other roads are bumpy dirt roads.
  9. It’s part of the Polynesian triangle with Hawaii at the top and Tahiti to the west.
  • In the summer of 2007, more than 90 million people cast their votes to determine which architectural marvels in the world deserved to be one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. There were a total of twenty-one landmarks vying for that title.
Easter Island, Chile 72

Rano Raraku

  • Of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, only the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt still stand. The pyramids were given an automatic spot after infuriated Egyptian officials said it was a disgrace to have to compete for something that had belonged to their country for so long. I agree!  We saw them in 2007.Easter Island, Chile 6
  • It is our goal to see all twenty-one landmarks. Also, Chris and I have collectively seen a lot of the twenty-one, however, not together. So the rule is, we go back and see all of them together!

New 7 Wonders of the World we’ve been to:

#1 Chichen Itza, Mexico – 2005
#2 Great Wall of China – 2010
#3 Machu Picchu, Peru – 2012
#4 Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 2012
#5 The Colosseum, Rome, Italy – 2012

New 7 Wonders of the World Runner Ups we’ve been to:

#9  Statue of Liberty, New York – 2005
#10 Sydney Opera House, Australia – 2005
#11 Hagia Sophia, Istanbul – 2007
#12 Acropolis, Athens – 2007
#13 Angkor Wat, Cambodia – 2010
#14 Eiffel Tower, Paris – 2010
#15 Stonehenge, England – 2011
#16 Easter Island, Chile – 2013

119 Easter Island, Chile

Ahu Tongariki

 

Comments