Tiwanaku

The day we arrived in La Paz I had my 1st real experience of squits from a 100% organic soup and sandwich. Jim was really poorly the next day, when we visited Tiwanaku 50 miles out of the city.In fact he was completely projectile and sometimes absent from our tour. Tiwanaku was an ancient civilisation, before the Inkas and seemingly more advanced than the Incas, around between 1,500 BC-1,200 AD and situated at a mammoth 4,100 metres. The stone work and ceramics made me realise how little we have advanced in such a long time. The site's considered to be the most important archeologically in South America. There are two large pyramids both are still almost completely covered with soil. They were aligned with the mountains and Lake Titikaka and were used as important political and religious places. Tiwanaku's elite also studied astronomy from the top of the pyramids to help them plan their crops. There is a small church in an adjacent modern village which archeologists (who are still excavating)think could cover a very important site, as Spanish conquerers often built churches on top of the most significant sites of previous civilisations, to obliterate the past as much as possible. One of the archeologists tried to have a look under the church whilst the priest was away, but was stopped by villagers. The Spanish also defaced the most symbolic statues, believing them to be `false` idols.

Some of the stone carvings depicted different faces, showing the diversity of the Tiwanaku civilisation, including one alien face...