Kon-Tiki expedition dockyard facilities provided by the Peruvian authorities, they constructed the raft out of balsa logs and other native materials in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquistadores. The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 6,900 km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotus on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely. Thor Heyerdahl's book about his experience became a bestseller. It was published in Norwegian in 1948 as "The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By
Marquesan Dog and is visible today at the site of Iʻipona. Only one of the dog carving is discernible now; the other one has weathered away. In 1956, Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl later claimed the reliefs on Tiki Makiʻi Tauʻa Pepe were llamas or pumas instead to bolster his theory that Polynesia was settled from South America. Later unidentified writers and rumors have insinuated that Heyerdahl deliberately altered and defaced the images in his process of restoring them. The modern consensus is that the carvings represent the extinct dog; they do not represent llamas, pumas or rats. In 1956, Robert