Tiahuanaco...the only ancient ruin in Bolivia

About 1600 years before Mary and Joseph failed to book ahead for their holiday in Bethlehem there existed a little village in a wide, high valley somewhere in what would later be called Bolivia, inhabited by the forerunners of a civilization called the Tiahuanaco. Two thousand years later, mainly because these ingenious people managed to develop sharper, pointier sticks than the surrounding villages, this village had evolved into the centre of the largest, most powerful empire that South America had seen to date. (Note, more pedantic archaeologists have dismissed the sharp stick theory, preferring to cite evidence of advanced farming methods, better leadership and organization but we all know what really happened…). Nobody knows what that city was called as in later years the more recently successful Incas took over and started to rename things, for want of a better name, the great minds of archaeology have called the place itself Tiahuanaco. Essentially it’s the only major ruin in Bolivia and we were suffering from pile of rock withdrawal symptoms after leaving Peru behind. After getting back from Huayna Potosi and spending a good half hour in the shower, then sleeping through most of the day, we decided the time had come to get cultural… tomorrow anyway.

Two's company!



Waking up as early as our still weary bones would grudgingly allow we packed some sarnies and jumped in a cab as far as the “micro” bus stop for the ruins. (A micro is a little white minibus used as a local form of public transport, packed full of smiling men and plump women desperately trying to squeeze her huge cloth pack into the tiny space under the seats, and us. For the equivalent of about 20p we were whisked out of La Paz through the bleak brown harshness of the surrounding countryside, mostly at quite worrying speeds, to the new settlement of Tiahuanaco. Or at least to the road off the highway that leads to it. This is why some travellers don’t mind paying the $25 it costs to get a taxi out here. Amanda and I though, ever prepared to have to walk that extra mile if it means saving money, proceeded to save $24.50, and walked that extra mile…..or two.

Rating top 5 on our museums list!

First order of business for us when we get to a new ruin is, if possible and if there aren’t hoards of other tourists arriving later in the day to swamp the actual ruins, to visit the museum first. That way we never have to hire a guide to have some idea of what these huge piles of formless rock used to represent. True to form we ignored the inviting entrance to the main event and headed indoors. We were not disappointed, the place was quite small, but exceptionally well laid out with mostly the big interesting stuff. Tiahuanaco is so old that most of the boring stuff has been ferreted away by locals stretching back to before the Spanish arrived and put whole new meanings onto the words grave robber. For that reason there are no interesting displays detailing the fascinating array of spoons this proud culture ate their soup with, no exciting descriptions explaining why they preferred bird designs when weaving ceremonial birthing blankets. None of that was in evidence here, just massive, monolithic, monumental rocks, carved in allsorts of ways for all sorts of purposes, though mostly so people who walked by would say “wow, that’s pretty big”. What they lacked in finesse they made up for more than amply in size. The most impressive of the lot is reserved for the end, after you walk through various rooms full of beautifully carved jaguar guards, stone bowls and statues you come to a large chamber reserved solely for the grand finale. The lights are low, almost certainly to increase the sense of awe as you are faced by a statue stood at the bottom of a little amphitheatre in the rooms centre that is easily as tall as a house. It’s mostly carved in the form of the Earth Mother, definitely human, but with a dazzling array of intricate stonework and carving all over the rest of it. The result is amazing. Amanda and I just stood and stared at it. Copanesque!!! It took us right back to the first ruin we saw out here. This hing is ruly fabulous. When the ncas first saw these massive carvings they cme up with a new mythology, that their Sun God first created a race of giants to walk the Earth giving them all the tools to live harmoniously and peacefully. But they misused those tools and grew evil, wasteful and war-like. In response the Great God turned them all to stone, dusted off his hands and went on to make the more perfect human race (though I cant see any difference in what we’ve managed to achieve). What was left was put in this valley for all men to see what happens when you’re bad.

The sun was beating fiercely as we stepped at last into the modern day ruins of Teohuanaco, an area about the size of nine football fields, three by three. Of course in its day the city was much, much bigger with suburbs and spin off towns, the evidence suggests that the farm and irrigation systems around the site were easily big enough to feed a population of 20,000 people. Not bad for a time when we were still living in straw hut villages bonking our neighbours over the heads with sticks for a leg of lamb. The Teohuanacans were erecting enormous stone statues to their gods, building massive pyramids pointing to the sky, and devising a religion, culture and tradition that, usurped in part by the Incas would still be in use today in the more remote hills and valleys of Peru and Bolivia.

Amongst the more interesting things here are a sunken temple with different faces carved around the inside walls, thought to be a house of healing. It didn’t make my stomach feel any better from the previous few days altitude and excursions so I let Amanda wander further afield and lay in the grass for a little sleep. On our walks around we came across some archaeological digs in the making, a reminder of Tony Robinson and his Time Team. Trench one was full of local women who smiled at us as they cleaned the mud off some broken pottery. Trench two contained a young American woman, fresh out of archaeology school that snarled at us and told us off for taking a picture.

Time Team Special



We took a walk up the hill in the middle of the site which clearly used to be a pyramid before getting covered in mud and grass (careless), and from the top could see all across the wide valley to the protecting ring of mountains that surrounded it. It was easy to see why the continents first city was built here, and from that easy to understand the later Incas obsession with altitude living. This had always been an area of mountainous civilisation, from the first villages and hunter gatherers, presumably following herds of llama and alpaca to the great civilisations that colonised the valleys and built their incredible cities high on the uppermost reaches. The local people had been obsessed with being as high up as possible since they moved into this region from the coast tens of thousands of years ago.

The best thing we saw in the ruins that day, at least as far as I was concerned was the doorway of the sun. Much like Stonehenge it is a stone arch built to house the rising sun from a certain point on the summer solstice. Unlike Stonehenge every inch of it is intricately carved, culminating at the centre with the image of their great sun god, a small man-like figure with flames radiating from his head. Surrounded by his messengers to the earthly world he still looks down on the ruins of what was the city dedicated to him, a vista of once great pyramids, half destroyed buildings and grass covered mounds.

We spent more time with the locals and their market stalls on the way out, buying a few trinkets, little animal carvings and a million year old fossil for 50p before heading up the road to another, less visited part of the ruins. Archaeologists had found a few more pyramids and buildings of less historical value and made a half hearted attempt to dig them up. What was left was more earth and grass covered mounds with crumbling stone walls emerging from the ground like zombies in a cheap horror movie. Amanda and I spent a fun hour wandering over the site looking for artefacts and carvings buried under stones. Anything the locals would have missed over the thousand years of looting that have preceded our visit. Suffice to say, we found very little in the way of Inca Rosetta stones, just a few crystals, one of them buried in the ground that was actually carved into the shape of a diamond!

Back at the road we hopped into the first micro that came our way and sped back to La Paz. Sure it hadn’t been another Machu Picchu, but at the end of the day there is only one of those, that’s what makes it special. It had been a beautiful sunny day though, perfect for a nice leisurely walk around some old ruins such as Bolivia has to offer. Altogether we were both pleased with our day, and exhausted after it. Back at our hotel we packed all our stuff together and had an early night. We set our alarm for early and prepared to brave the world’s most dangerous road… on bicycles.