Never heard of Tiwanaku? Not too surprising. It was the major culture that dominated western South America before the Incas. It was in the area of Bolivia and Peru. A large majority of the site has not been completly excavated, however large parts have been `stolen`and are in musuems around the world. Initially, they took away pieces of Tiwanaku and incorrectly called them Incan artifacts.
On our hour and a half drive from La Paz, our exteremly knowledgable guide pointed out lots of things along the way. He spoke very good English. (Everyone in Bolivia speaks decent English, we were quite surprised.) He pointed out the fields and explained about the small towns we passed.
In Tiwanaku, they are developing a museum but its a little bare. They are also excavating and restoring. The whole town seemed to be busy digging through the dirt, sorting things into piles, and so on. I think in about 10 years, this will be an awesome place to visit with all the work that is currently underway. For us, it was just sort of okay.
They did have a gate they call the sun gate. Our guide explained the symbols and showed us how it was set up exactly the same way as the current Greogrian calender and predates it by hundreds of years. There were also large stones sort of resembling people that were looked upon as some sort of religious object/Gods. They had lots of intercate carvings and details. All of the details were mathmatically equivelent and related, which was neat.
We managed to make it back to La Paz in order to catch a shuttle to Copacabana, Bolivia. It was a bit hectic getting there and racing through the city in a cab. The shuttle was a mini bus packed full (as is typical of all transportation down here). At one point, we had to take a ferry. The passengers and the minibus took seperate ferries which was sort of funny.
On our hour and a half drive from La Paz, our exteremly knowledgable guide pointed out lots of things along the way. He spoke very good English. (Everyone in Bolivia speaks decent English, we were quite surprised.) He pointed out the fields and explained about the small towns we passed.
In Tiwanaku, they are developing a museum but its a little bare. They are also excavating and restoring. The whole town seemed to be busy digging through the dirt, sorting things into piles, and so on. I think in about 10 years, this will be an awesome place to visit with all the work that is currently underway. For us, it was just sort of okay.
They did have a gate they call the sun gate. Our guide explained the symbols and showed us how it was set up exactly the same way as the current Greogrian calender and predates it by hundreds of years. There were also large stones sort of resembling people that were looked upon as some sort of religious object/Gods. They had lots of intercate carvings and details. All of the details were mathmatically equivelent and related, which was neat.
We managed to make it back to La Paz in order to catch a shuttle to Copacabana, Bolivia. It was a bit hectic getting there and racing through the city in a cab. The shuttle was a mini bus packed full (as is typical of all transportation down here). At one point, we had to take a ferry. The passengers and the minibus took seperate ferries which was sort of funny.
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