Day at Tiwanaku

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The next morning, we woke early, gobbled down our breakfast and headed on a bus by 7:30. Where were we headed? The the pre-Incan ruins of Tiwanaku.

It took about one hour to get to the site, and along the way our bilingual guide told us very interesting facts about La Paz, El Alto, the ruins etc. He spoke both in English and Spanish, which was good, but after a while, it seemed he was doing a lot of talking.

First we toured the inside museum and saw all the artifacts of the ancient civilization. It was pretty sweet that since we had Bolivian Carnet ID cards, we only had to pay 10Bs each ($1.50) instead of 80Bs like everyone else! The people at the desk teased Carl when he said we were from Santa Cruz. They asked him a few questions, purposely using words that end in S and then left it off, just like Santa Cruz folks do. Quiere_ pagar de_pue_? Carl had a pretty good laugh!

It was neat to see the artifacts and hear our guide talk, twice, for about 45 minutes. And then the kids started to get a bit antsy, and in fact, so did their parents and Eric and Michelle. The tour was taking way too long. Other groups were coming in, looking, and moving on. Couldn't we just do that?!

After about 2 hours, we actually made it outside, after feeding the kids 3 packages of cookies (I admit, I probably ate at least one pack myself...) to see the ruins. Our guide wanted us to follow him closely, as to not miss a thing, but it was getting so long and boring it was painful. He was asking for group participation, and everyone was tired and really had no clue the answers. But he just waited for a response, asking each and every one of us, all 35 of us, question after question. Michelle finally just wandered off with Joel.

We f-i-n-a-l-l-y got to the ruins and were able to take some pictures. But by that time, I had no awe or amazement, only knawing hunger and fatigue. The kids just looked weary.

It was quite the sight though, despite the internal distractions. I found it absolutely amazing that stones could be moved such a distance, to be carved, to be positioned perfectly to coincide with the setting sun of the summer solstice. Talk about an advanced people.

So we snapped a bunch of pictures and then headed for lunch. I had the fish, because we were close to Lake Titicaca and it would be horrible not to have fresh trout when so close! Carl ordered chicken for the kids and he had Llama. It was quite tasty!

Then we got on the bus and everyone had a nice quiet ride back to the hotel. We rested a bit in our room and then went out a bit. We found an Israeli restaurant for supper that actually had a menu in Spanish and Hebrew. ??!!! Que interesante. The hummus was a huge disappointment, but the rest of the food was good.

Right after supper, we headed to bed. It was going to another early morning, although much earlier than we expected.....