Today we got out of the city of La Paz and traveled about an hour to some ruins near Lake Titicaca called Tiahuanaco. These are the people who built a civilization on the shores of Lake Titicaca before the Inka. They had a really long civilization, it lasted 24 centuries! We saw the Sun Gate and some statues that represented different things to the people. The symbolism in the statues was really cool. Every carving meant something different, for example, the way the statues hands are represented their place in society. A statue of a governor would be carved with his hands out stretched, a priest would have his/her hands together in front of the chest, and a wiseman would have one hand over his heart and one over his navel. The Sun Gate was really important – the Tiahuanacans did everything be the sun, told days and season based on the way the sun hit the Sun Gate at different times. The Tiahuanacans placed a lot of emphasis on duality – sun and moon, earth and sky, male and female.
The ride out to Tiahuanaco and back was really cool, we got to see the countryside and how people live outside the city. There were mud brick houses scattered all over the valleys and hills, and each house had a small mina house, a courtyard, and a few smaller houses attached. Just by the way the houses were set up, you could tell how important family and extended family are to the people. There have also been dogs, everywhere! And we saw cows, sheep, donkeys, and alpaca in the countryside. The people live right next to their animals and the fields they farm. It is harvest season, so in the fields I could see wheat and quinoa being harvested into stacks to dry.
Tomorrow we are riding the bus, all day, to Cusco, Peru! We are all doing well, and having a good time. The altitude here is very high, so we´ve been feeling a little off from that, but when we get to Cusco, which is lower, we should feel better. Ciao!
