Bolivia 14 - 23 September (day 143 - 152)

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After my passport adventure, I arrived in La Paz early morning on Thursday 17 September, the same day Robson was going to be back from his visit to Alfredo's family and village. Robson arrived in Bolivia three days earlier.
I had a connection in Miami and so did Vincent, coming from London. As the gods were somehow with us, we were on the same plane. Vincent has been to South America many times but none of us had been to Bolivia before. It was great to meet someone, a familiar face, and spend some time together.
While waiting for Robson who was going to arrive in La Paz in the afternoon, Vincent and I visited some of the main touristic places in La Paz.
I have to say that while I enjoyed La Paz's "museo do oro" (museum of gold) and a few of its ancient buildings, it is a difficult place to visit. Given the high altitude it is situated on (between 3,600 and 4,000 meters) you need to take a deep breath after each few steps. This is a challenge, given the fact that La Paz is overcrowded and polluted, and quite dirty in some places. It is better not to start a trip to the Andes at one of its highest cities but we made this mistake. Nevertheless we enjoyed seeing the Bolivian way of life in the highest capital in the world. People are extremely genuine and kind.

For the first three days Vincent went to visit the Amazon side of Bolivia and Robson and I visited sites around La Paz and Cochabamba. While Vincent was visiting Coroico, Robson and I went to visit Tiwanaku (or Tiahanaco).
Tiwanaku is an exceptional archaeological site about 75 Km from La Paz, where a pre-Inca empire had its capital. It was the longest-running empire of all the Andean civilisations and flourished from the 4th till the 11th century; it covered large parts of current Bolivia but also Peru and even Chile. The empire collapsed between AD 1150 and AD 1200
There is a lot to say about this civilisation, but one of the most special features is its agricultural technique. It used “flooded-raised fields”. The fields were divided into smaller parts, elevated and surrounded by canals filled with water. While during the day the water absorbs some of the intense heat, it restitutes it at night alleviating the damage of very cold and frosty nights common at such high altitude.
This technique provides exceptional yields, even higher than what is achieved today with the help of fertilizers and pesticides.
The other feature worth mentioning is the massive architecture realizations. One of the highlights was the subterranean temple. Everything that is spoken inside is amplified to the outside so others can also hear the content of the celebrations in the temple. In another area there was also a stone with a distinctive hole in it that when spoken through it amplified the voice like a megaphone "so the message could be spread".
In short, this site was a revelation, a fantastic jump back into time and culture and an excellent preparation for understanding the Inca sites we were going to see later on.

The next day we flew to Cochabamba, a progressive and economically active city which lies in a fertile valley at 2,558 meters above sea level. Its 500,000 inhabitants benefit from the best weather in Bolivia, with warn sunny days and cool nights. This is exactly what we needed to recover from polluted La Paz.
There was a festival of ”tunas universitarios” in Cochabamba. We discovered that the South American Universities have music bands called “tuna” with its all male members dressed in Spanish costumes from the 16th century. They organise contests, so we assisted at one of these contests with several 'tunas' from universities coming from all over Bolivia and Peru.
Back in La Paz we were reunited with Vincent who came back from Coroico. We shared our stories over dinner, had a lovely last night in La Paz and left the next day for Copacabana on lake Titicaca. It is an attractive little town, close to the Peruvian border. Its basilica build in the beginning of the 17th century was built to accommodate the numerous pilgrims who came there when miracles began happening after the presentation of a statue of the Virgin Mary, carved by the grandson of the Inca.
From there we took a boat to visit the Island of the Sun a jewel on the lake. We enjoyed very much climbing along the paths and admiring the fantastic landscapes anywhere our eyes could star at. We saw for the first time Inca ruins, very interesting but unable to compete with the beauty of the landscape.

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Photos

General view of La Paz
La Paz is the seat of the Government and spreads itself along the mountains from 3,600 m. to over 4,000 m. altitude. The constitutional capital is still the city of Sucre.

La Paz
Picture take at the museo de oro

Comments

[Van Malder Philippe]

Que des souvenirs
Magnifique !! A bientôt, Cordialement,