Day 32: 1/08/12
I'm going to start losing track of the days now that we're in a new month!! Can't believe I have half my south America trip done already! Time has flown.
Went on a day trip to Tiwanaku today. Noone else from the group was going- some were cycling the death road and some wanted to see the city, which I have seen a bit of already.
I was collected at the hotel in a car and brought to the bus. It was interesting cos we stopped of at two other hotels to get people and the last girl had to go in the boot part of the car! No health and safety regulations here! We eventually got the bus anyway!
The Tiwanaku people lived from 1500 BC to 1200 AD. They survived much longer than other civilisations! Lake titicaca is the birth place of many civilisations, including Tiwanaku. They had similar things to the other civilisations we have seen- ceramics, mummies, human sacrifices, deformation of the head. Archaelogists studying lake titicaca have found underwater temples- may be from this time or Inca time. It is unsure how they came to their end. When the Incas came the temples were already abandoned. When the Spanish came they used stones from the temples to make churches. They also destroyed some of the designs by putting Christian crosses on them.
You can only see a small part of the temples. Most of the secrets of Tiwanaku or still underground. Archaeologists are working on it all ye time but they dont have enough money to finish. You can see that the stones were huge and heavy- they used some local red sandstone and other grey stone from the Andes mountains that they would have to bring by boat and then carry or drag. It's amazing how big the stones are that they carries. They used metal to hold the rocks together and to carve designs. The designs that you can see are really intricate. There's one 8ft statue kept in the museum that's very impressive. He has little designs all over him. Apparently a lot of the designs are to do with astronomy and the calendar. He has 365 circles on his trousers. On other things there are 12 sections or seven sections, etc. On the sun gate you can see how they measured seasons and months. They had 30 days in a month and September was very important so that had 35.
The main entrance on the other side was built so that the sun would shine directly in the door at the solstices- just like newgrange. The shape of the cross they use (same as inca cross) was to represent the Southern Cross star constellation. Also along the walls there were some holes, built like the in we part of an ear so that when you talk in one side the sound is amplified.
There wa a few different temples there. One was down lower to represent the underworld- there were faces all around this temple, one is quite like an alien and another like the mask in scream!
Another temple was a little further away as it was thought it was a port for lake titicaca. Although the lake was bigger years ago it wasn't that big in the time the temple was built. The metal work on the stone exceeds the work of the time and some archaeologist years ago said it must have been done by creatures from outer space!
We had lunch during the day and was chatting to an English guy who had been travelling for 5 months and an English couple who have 4 weeks to do Peru and Bolivia! All very nice people!
When we got back to La Paz, the bus let us out in the middle of the city. We had no idea where we were and we had all been told that we would get a transfer back to the hotel. Luckily we were all going the same direction so we found it together! A French guy on he trip was walking all the way past my hotel so it was grand! He had only 12 days to see everything in Peru an Bolivia- dont know how he's going to do it!
Was back around 4 and had a lazy few hours reading and having a shower, collecting my laundry! Very normal stuff. When I got my laundry there was someone's track suit bottoms there that weren't mine! When Janine got here they had shrunk her thermal t-shirt. It looked like a child's t-shirt! So, not a great service!
I was going to go to Isla del sol tomorrow but I think I'll jus chill and do some shopping- maybe try to save some photos from my camera- that kind of stuff! It's handy to be back in a city ive been in before because I don't feel like I'm missing anything if I'm not out sight-seeing!
The people going onto Peru had their meeting with their new group but afterwards all the old group left went for dinner. Tina, Marita, eirik, Volker, Anna, Hannah, Janine and I all went to a pizzeria next door and shared some giant pizzas! The restaurant had lots of napkins kept that people had written notes on so we all wrote our own with our flags, but the irish flag is hard to do in one colour!!