The Kantuta Expeditions were two separate expeditions on balsa rafts

Balsa (ship)

A Balsa is a boat or ship built by various pre-Columbian South American civilizations constructed from woven reeds of the Totora bullrush. They varied in size from small canoe sized personal fishing boats to large ships up to 30 meters long...

 led by the Czech

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 explorer and adventurer Eduard Ingris

Eduard Ingris

Eduard Ingriš was a Czech-American composer, photographer, conductor and adventurer.Born in Zlonice in Bohemia , Ingriš left Czechoslovakia in 1947 for South America, living in Brazil and Peru...

.

The voyages were inspired by the Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...

's Kon-Tiki

Kon-Tiki

Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name...

 expeditions. The goal of the expeditions was to repeat the success of the Kon-Tiki and confirm Heyerdahl's thoughts about the migration of Peruvian people to Polynesia.

The first expedition, Kantuta I, took place in 1955/1956 and led to failure. In 1959 Ingris built a new balsa raft Kantuta II and tried to repeat the previous expedition. The second expedition was a success. Ingris was able to cross the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

on the balsa raft from Peru to Polynesia.

External links

• Raft Voyage, from High C's to High Seas Krajane