La Paz

Last weekend, I went to La Paz with twelve other students from the Institute. We stayed in the Maryknoll House in La Paz, and visited the ruins of Tiwanaku and Lago Titicaca. We flew into La Paz on Friday, and the next morning, left for Tiwanaku. To get there, we had to drive up, out of La Paz and across the altiplano, and as we left the city, the views of the Andes got better and better. We finally got there, and walked through the museums before entering the actual archaeological site. The Tiwanakotans were a civilization that existed before the Incans, but were a non militaristic, agricultural society. Their capital Tiwanaku, is the site that we visited, and there, the archaeologists have discovered monoliths 24 feet big, and a temple, named Kalasasaya, which was used as a calendar. There was a stone doorway, called la Puerta del Sol, and at the start of each month, the sun would shine through la Puerta and onto a part of the wall opposite, marking which month it was. They also built a pyramid with a reflecting pool at the top, and, using this, they were able to chart the movements of the stars. Their architecture is very symmetrical, with certain symbols which they held in great importance. The puma, the llama, the fish, and the condor are their four most important animals, as each one represents a certain aspect of their life, the earth (puma), the water (fish), the sky (condor) and the fire (llama). The last one is kind of weird, but the guide explained that the word llama also meant fire in pre Colomban times. Their architecture has these symbols on it, and the number that it has is always 7, 12, 30, or 52 reflecting days of the week, months of the year, days of the month and weeks of the year respectively.
The next day, we went to Lago Titicaca, which is the highest lake in the world. The water was no colder than the beaches of Northern Massachusetts (for those of you who know what those are like), but the water is a striking shade of blue, and the trout from the lake are delicious. We also took a detour to visit a site where boats are built from the reeds. After that we took the plane back to Cochabamba.
This weekend I´m going to hike up Tunari, a mountain outside of Cochabamba. I´m trying to put my pictures up on Picasa, and I´ll give you the website when I figure it out. Until then, nos vemos