tiwanaku

Our big vacation this summer was to Bolivia...three and half weeks.  And while my intentions were to have us visit lots of places we'd never been to in our many trips there, I was pretty sick the whole time, which put a huge damper on us doing lots of fun stuff.

But one place we did get to was Tiwanaku, the mysterious ancient ruins located just a short drive from La Paz.

I had read up on a little of the history of it beforehand and tried to share some of the mysteries surrounding the  site with the kids to peak their interest.  Juan Pablo's brother was also able to point out lots of interesting facts and stories to keep them going.  It was a lot of walking in the oppressive Bolivian sun, but definitely worth it.



We saw a sign as soon as we got there about not taking photos of the excavation sites.  What??  Not sure why that would be, but Mariana (Julio's wife) and I were weary of taking lots of pictures, so we tried to hide our cameras and take them when no one was looking.

That's why you see a quick shot of the back of this monolith.



The most amazing part was the accessibility of the entire ancient place.  A simple rope is blocking off the most important structures.



But as you can see here, we were able to run our hands along the rocks to find the smoothest ones.  Some felt almost like silk.  So you can't take pictures, but you can touch it and mess it up with your hands, right?



Part of the Tiwanaku site includes a place called Puma Punku...fun to say and even more mysterious and not to be missed.  Lots of large, heavy stones, cut to perfection...but how?

Here's one of the more amazing ones...a perfectly chiseled line down this hard stone with tiny little holes drilled along it....only... there were no drills back then, were there?



Check out Diego in the back.  He found a long, fluffy piece of grass and started sweeping the dirt path. I thought it was so funny because it's similar to how you'd see people sweeping around the city.



Here's a quick picture I snapped at the park of a broom and dust pan one of the workers was using.



So here he is sweeping around the ruins again.



Somewhere on one of these rocks, there's an image of an elephant type animal.  The mystery...there are obviously no elephants in Bolivia.

Notice how they're leaning on these possibly thousands of years old stones.  Don't touch them!  That would never be allowed here in the states.
(Oh, and check out Diego sweeping in the background.)



And one more to prove I was really there.  Beautiful blue sky, right?!



Get off of those ancient ruins, kids!



If you're interested in learning more about the mysteries surrounding Tiwanaku, it's worth looking up.  There are lots of sites out there that will leave you wondering who built this place, how did they do it, and what happened to them?