Tiwanaku and Sorata

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We took a day trip from La Paz to Tiwanaku, which is about an hour and a half away. Tiwanaku is a pre-Inca civilization that created a massive stone structure where they lived. We walked around their site for a couple hours and what I found fascinating was all the statues they built out of stone and also the carvings they did in the stone. They were a very talented civilization, so talented that later the Incas took their architecture and used it as their own. On our way back from the site we were riding in a local collectivio, or van and on one of our stops we pick up someone and loaded a lamb in a blanket on top of the van, then it started to rain. We all felt very bad for the lamb but the lamb was OK at the end of the drive.
Our next stop was a little mountain town a couple hours outside of La Paz named Sorata. It is a beautiful town on the cliff of many huge mountains. We had a very relaxing time here and just enjoyed ourselves. On the second day there we took a long hike through the mountains that led to a cave. This cave was nestled inside the mountains and is a very large cave. There is even a lake inside the cave and we were able to rent a little paddle boat and cruz around on the lake. We did some hiking inside the cave but the oxygen level inside was very low and we were ready to leave after about an hour. Once out we were happy to be able to breath clean air again. Once we arrived back to our place we made the discovery that while we were gone someone came into our room and found our money. All of our money was gone and also my I-pod. I was really bummed out about this because not only was all my music gone but I also had a lot of games on my I-pod that I played daily. As you can imagine it put a huge damper on our trip. If you ever go to Sorata do not stay at the hostel mirador!

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