Background
On the occasion of their honeymoon, Thor Heyerdahl and his first wife Liv determined to escape from civilization, and to "return to nature". They nominally had an academic mission, to research the spread of animal species between islands, but in reality they intended to "run away to the South Seas" and never return home. The couple arrived at Fatu Hiva in 1937, in the valley of Omo‘a. Finding that civilization, albeit on a vastly reduced scale, was still present there, they decided to cross over the island's mountainous interior to settle in one of the small, nearly abandoned, valleys on the eastern side of the island. There, they made their thatch-covered stilted home in the valley of Uia.
Read more about this topic: Fatu Hiva (book)
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