Before traveling to Bolivia I was looking for trips which would bring the
Bolivian culture closer to me. This is when I found out about Tiwanaku, a
little village just about 50 km from La Paz. It used to be the center of a
pre-inca culture. Pre-inca? – was I asking. I had never heard about the times
before the Incas. And seems like that the Tiwanakus already built totems and
churches, and had complex beliefs about the reason of life.
Our tour started in the Tiwanaku museums where we saw the Pacha Mama
monolit totems, the ceramics they produced between 1500BC – 1200AD, and the
rich symbols they used: the colours, the animals, the religious sculptures. Everything
had a meaning. Everything had to do with the connection between the
sky-earth-underground levels and the movement of the sun.
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In front of the Tiwanaku Museum - the Bolivian and Andine flags |
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Little man at big altitudes |
The tour continued in the open air space. We saw the ruins of a pyramid, a
church and an underground hall. Of course they all represented one of the
levels. Pyramid the sky, church the earth and the hall symbolized the
underground level.
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The model of the sacred park |
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Gate of the Sun |
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Pacha Mama |
The Tiwanakus were great observers. They already found out when the sun was
the highest or when the days were the shortest. Every 21 June people gather
together from all over the world to celebrate the sun. The new year in the
Tiwanaku culture. If you are fast you can meet the Dalai Lama who visits the
ruins this year and celebrates the new year.
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Leo, our guide explaining the relation between church and the sun |
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Ruins of the pyramid - 5 levels exclavated |
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I was also there, yes! |
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My favourite wall decoration from Tiwanaku |
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The 3-dimension Andene cross |
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Ruins of an old gate |
About Tiny Girl With Big Bag
Hobby writer and autodidact photographer whose passion is to travel and get to know new people and cultures. She has been on 4 continents and 30 countries, and the outcome is this travel blog where she shares travel stories, thoughts, tips and photography always through a subjective eye.
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