On Saturday, we took a tour to the Tiwanaku ruins about 45 miles west of La Paz. Tiwanaku was a powerful culture for over 500 years(that’s 5 times longer than the Incas and about as long as the Romas). I was surprised I had never hear about this culture since it was the longest running civilization in South America. They lived sometime between AD300 to AD1000.
All their temples were built according to the position of the sun and moon and they used calendars year round. Their main crop was potatoes. Researchers believe that 60% of the city was destroyed by the Spanish, who stole stones from the site in the 1500s to build churches. Christians also defaced a lot of the Tiwanaku monuments, as you can see crosses carved into the stone.
Here’s a few other pics from Tiwanaku ruins:
After our tour, back in La Paz, we had a great Mexican dinner(a first since USA), followed by a little unintentional shopping on the way home. 🙂
