The legendary Tiahuanaco

Today a visit to the mysterious awaits pre-Columbian ruin site Tiahuanaco to us. At 8 o'clock in the morning we are ready at the Turismo Bolivia-Peru office in the city center. There are three Colombian women and an elderly Mexican couple from the tour.

We fight our way up through the traffic chaos from the center El Altowhere everything is worse. The sister city of La Paz, situated at over 4000 meters above sea level, now has more inhabitants than the capital itself. Finally we leave the city behind and drive out into it Altiplano plateau. At a lookout point we get a splendid view. On our left we see the mighty one on the horizon Lake Titicacawhile the roofs of El Alto shimmer in the sun on the right. On less cloudy days you would see the Cordilliera Real with over 6000 meters above sea level at various peaks.

We reach them around 11 a.m. Tiahuanaco ruins. We start our tour by visiting the interesting, but not particularly beautifully designed ones Museum. In chronological order we see the first signs of settlement in the region in the form of arrowheads, which date back to approx. 1500 BC. To be dated. Not until 300 BC Began Tiahuanaco to one Center for Religion and Culture to grow and found his Flowering period between 600 to 900 AD Most of the artistic finds, such as urns with puma heads or richly decorated pottery, come from this period. In its heyday, Tiahuanaco's influence extended from the Pacific coast to northern Chile and Argentina. At the end of the first millennium, a prolonged period of drought led to the city being abandoned and the demise of culture. Afterwards, the cultures of the Incas and Aymara that followed are briefly discussed, as some of the culture of Tiahuanaco has been adopted.

Then we set out on the extensive and still hardly explored Explore archaeological site. Until today only about 1 percent the entire city have been excavated. The latest satellite images suggest a city with a population of up to 1.5 million.

First we climb it Akapana step pyramidewhich today only protrudes from the landscape as a hill. In some places, parts of the seven terraces that made up the pyramid have been reconstructed.

A little further down into the Sunken yard. Different types of human heads protrude from the precisely fitting boulders. A detail that stimulates a wide variety of speculations. Certain figures can hardly be denied European, African and Asian facial features. So are in Traces of coca leaves have been found in Egyptian tombswhich suggest trade contacts between Africa and America long before the time of Christopher Columbus.

Finally, we'll explore them Kalasasaya. Tiahuanaco's most famous buildings stand on this elevated temple: the Ponce monolith, «El Fraile»(The monk) and the famous, richly decorated Puerta del Sol (Sun Gate).

After this instructive morning, lunch is waiting for us in a restaurant next door.

At the end of the tour we will visit that Field of ruins of Puma Punku. Another archaeological discovery whose amazing details will reveal to the visitor reveal only on closer inspection. Boulders made of granite and extremely hard diorite, which have dead straight edges and lines, are scattered around. Even today, such work would be technologically highly demanding! Whether these stones were actually created by the Aymara and how they were transported here in the first place remains to be seen by science a mystery.