Pre-Columbian rafts voyaged as far as Mexico and introduced metallurgy to the civilizations of that country. Some scholars and adventurers of the 20th and 21st century have asserted that the rafts and their crews journeyed thousands of miles across the Pacific to Polynesia, most notably Thor Heyerdahl who reached Polynesia on the Kon-Tiki raft. Several other people and groups have also built rafts based on prehistoric models and undertaken trans-Pacific voyages. Balsa is the Spanish word for raft. The use of rafts for commerce on the coasts of Peru and Ecuador, from northern Chile to southern Colombia, continued until the late 19th
Anthony Smith (explorer) younger than 56) departed from La Gomera in the Canary Islands in a custom-built raft, with the intention of crossing the Atlantic Ocean within three months, eventually arriving in Eleuthera. The raft, which was given the name "An-Tiki" in reference to the "Kon-Tiki" raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition from South America to the Polynesian islands, was assembled during November and December 2010. To find crew mates Smith placed an ad in the Telegraph in 2006, which simply read: ""Fancy rafting across the Atlantic? Famous traveller requires 3 crew. Must be OAP. Serious