Tiahuanaco and Titicaca

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Not much is known about the pre-Incan civilization that lived along the ancient shores of Lake Titicaca, but they did leave behind an impressive city in Tiahuanaco. Even though much of it is still being excavated, and even more of it was pilfered by the Incas and later the Spanish for their own building, it is still an interesting site.

The sun was hot on the day we went. It beat down on the earth, heating up the ruddy rocks that were used to build the temples and buildings over 1000 years ago.

The largest site, Piramide de Akapana, is still being excavated/reconstructed, but it is massive, and from the top it commands excellent views of the surrounding land. It is hard to imagine that Tiahuanaco once sat on the shoreline of Lake Titicaca, as the lake is now about 18km away. Even harder to imagine is how they got the massive rocks used in construction here, as the nearest quarry is 5km away.

Inside Templo de Kalasasaya are a couple of impressive monoliths: El Fraile (the Priest) and Monolito Ponce. Monolito Ponce stares towards the stone entrance to Templo de Kalasasaya. Through the entry way, Templete Semisubterráneo is visible. The most famous piece at Tiahuanaco though is the Puerta del Sol, which was carved from a single block of stone.

The many faces carved in Templete Semisubterráneo were entertaining, but there were lots of school groups and tourists, and I was anxious to get away from them. I slipped off to a "remote" corner of the site, where the Puerta de la Luna is. It is much smaller than the Puerta del Sol, but still very impressive, and the nearly cloudless blue sky behind made for an impressive vantage point.

After spending a couple of hours at the ruins, we headed towards the Peruvian border, and the small village of Guaqui. There, we stopped at the naval base to see Lake Titicaca (or a small branch of it). It's amusing that land-locked Bolivia still maintains its navy, but they take it pretty seriously, and still believe they will get back their coastline, which they lost to Chile in a war.

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Comments

[hector]

as far as i know!!!
the sun door. this door has a venusian calendar with 24 months and 24 days for every month, very very exactly, how did they know???? ( the people who make it)