Blogs from Tiwanaku, La Paz Department, Bolivia, South America

Went out for a delicious meal on Monday - almost couldn´t finish the steak I had, bloody massive!! Took a trip to the ancient historical site Tiwanaku on Tueday to see ´las ruinas´ that remain of the Tiwanaku civilisation. The pyramid structures are pretty impressive although much of the stone work remains hidden under a great earth mound. However much of the stonework from the temples remains intact after over 2000 years and its pretty incredible. Nearly as good as my wall I built at mum and dads new barn in Shropshire but still pretty impressive - pics up soon for a comparison!! Good spanish lesson on wednesday morning, followed by an afternoon of preparation for an interview with Adrian Villaneuava - one of the best musicians to emerge out of Bolivia in the last 50 ... read more

"We saw these huge heads. One had a chopped off head. Some had funny faces. There were huge statues. We bought some little stone heads. We met a nice boy and a girl." - Sofia Our second day in Bolivia as we were adjusting to the altitude we decided to take a day trip to Tiwanaku. This place was even older than the Incan ruins we were going to see soon in Peru. We got picked up at our hotel and joined about 20 others on a bus. It was about a 2 hour drive. We first checked out the museum....boring...but then we head outdoors to check it out. It was really cool. I especially liked the wall with all the funny faces. There were also some statues that were really neat and I had daddy ... read more

Everybody knows about the culture of Ancient Egypt that survived for more than 5000 years. Nobody knows about the culture of Tiwanaku that with a duration of more than 3000 years was the culture that had been second longest in power after ancient Egypt. Pumapunku, one of the sites of the Tiwanaku culture, has been interpreted as - Atlantis (yes, Atlantis in Bolivia!) - A site built by aliens (according to special friend Erich von Däniken and due to stone carvings that seem to be too exact to have been made by human hands) - A site built for aliens (Hello Mr. von Däniken!) - A port As the majority of the ruins has not been excavated yet, there is a lot more space for imagination and creativity... ... read more

Nov 8, 2009 Through prior research, we knew of an ancient city, Tiwanaku, near La Paz. We were not sure the best way to get there, so we booked a day trip with our Loki Hostel. The tour included transportation, lunch, and a guide (the best attribute because it was not self-explanatory). On our tour bus we met Amy (U.K), Dominique (Seattle), and Tim (Australia). Amy was “killing time” in La Paz waiting on her friends to arrive from Rurrenabaque. They had been stuck there over a week because of the bad weather. We were very glad we decided not to go because a week or more waiting for an airplane would have caused us to miss quite a bit of other destinations. Additionally, the bus route is the most dangerous in the world; the week ... read more

Bonjour a tous! Encore moi! Une autre petite journee s,est ecoulee et j;en profite pour vous en faire un bref resume, le temps de recharger mon lecteur MP3. Tout d;abord, tel que mentionne hier, j;avais reserve pour aujourd;hui un tour aux ruines pre'incas de Tiwanaku. Je prends mon dejeuner et j,attends tranquillement dans le lobby. Une dame vient me chercher a l;heure convenue. J;embarque dans le mini'bus de l;agence. On fait un mini'tour de ville pour aller ramasser 7 autres personnes. Ca fait du bien de voir la cohue de La Paz derriere les vitres securitaires d;un mini'bus. Pas besoin d;eviter les centaines de pietons, les multiples etals de marche, les voitures, etc. On ramasse un drole d;hollandais. Il ne savait pas qu;il devait payer des frais d;entree sur place. Il court a son hotel chercher ... read more

The city of La Paz varies in altitude between @3000m - 4100m, a fact that was enough to blow my mind even without the altitude sickness I was suffering from! OK so perhaps travelling here from sea level in just one day hadn't been the best idea ever but experience told me my first few days at altitude were going to be pretty evil regardless and there really hadn't been anywhere else to stop in between. Still I tried to be a good little backpacker during those first days, pushing myself out of the hostel to do 'touristy' things (interspersed with lots of sit down breaks!) by day but inevitably being back in bed at an embarrassingly early hour, having finally succumbed to the pounding headache and nausea, whilst everyone else it seemed went out partying. ... read more