Tiwanaku

A couple of hours drive from La Paz is Tiwanaku. Pre colombian, pre Incan civilisation. Not a huge amount is known about them, but they certainly had sophisticated agriculture and astronomical skills.

To get the bus, we headed into the cemetery district.

It wasn’t obvious where exactly the busses left from, again, Open Street Maps to the rescue (link to busses)

We didn’t go with a guided trip, partly for the fun of working it out ourselves & partly ‘cos budgets are a thing. So, I’m afraid I can’t talk too much about what the various areas were used for. Here’s some fancy stonework.

In the dimpled rock above, they’d actually drilled holes right through. It’d be interesting to see the techniques they used.

Below you can see the subterranean temple, one of the more complete parts, though again, I’m afraid I’m not sure if this is “original” or restored (with bits and pieces from all over the place).

The walls were amazing. However, they were reconstructed and apparently not as perfectly made as the originals would have been. Still, you can see how regular the blocks are, it’s some impressive construction. Some of these columns are incredibly heavy (25 tonnes ish).

Some of the rocks came from across Lake Titicaca, which Tiwanaku used to be close to the shores of (no more! – now a good 10km away)

Below you can see the Gate of the Sun. It has been moved (they think) from its original position. Made in ~500AD. They still don’t know what the figures really represent. Its likely the door was used for astronomical/astrological purposes.

Here you can see the pyramidal structure called the Akapana. Partly destroyed by looters back in the day. It’s unfortunate to see the llamas running around on this UNESCO site..

Below is Maaike with the moon door, not as ornate as the Sun door.

Also stopped in at Pumapunku, another site 500m or so away from Tiwanaku. Again, some extremely detailed stone work. It also contains the largest slabs, weighing in at around 131 metric tonnes.

And then it was time to head home. We had a somewhat interesting time of it, taking a local bus which dropped us in El Alto, rather than back at the cemetary area. We opted to walk to the cable car (4km). I don’t think we’d have done it in the dark, as El Alto doesn’t have the best reputation in the world, but still, it was fine enough in daylight.