The Cave

Our arrival in the administrative capital of Bolivia - La Paz - literally took our breath away. That tends to happen when you fly from an island paradise a tad over sea level to the heights of the Andes (around 3600m above the salty stuff) in a few hours.

Still, we pottered on, and after a quick coca tea (which we were assured would help) and a swift snooze we came over all touristy - time to head to a dinner show then! “Huari” was billed as an “evening of traditional Bolivian dancing and entertainment”. I’m not sure if the dodgy costumes (mainly fru-fru skirts that became shorter as the night wore on) were completely authentic, but we really enjoyed the show - and managed to completely over-order from the extensive llama-tastic menu.

The next day, the tables were turned when we became the entree for a would-be scamster in the centre of La Paz. While sitting on some steps in the Plaza San Francisco a well dressed lady tried to get our attention, telling us we had something on our backs… Mustard… LOTS of Mustard… I think we were supposed to leap to our feet and be distracted while our bags were swiped, but being the people we are, we simply stayed sat there and told the now very shifty looking woman to piss off - which she duly did. Damn. More washing.

Feeling a little less lethargic and acclimatising to the altitude, we cast our net a little wider the following day and headed out to a place of many spellings - Tihuanaco, Tiwanaku, Tiwanako, Tihuanaku, Tiahuanako - I think you get the eyedeer, ideer, idea, aydia, aideur. There has been much debate about this ancient site, but a few things we can confirm… Our guide was crap. It’s pretty big. There are the remains of a “pyramid”, a sunken area and a large platform. Our guide was crap. The “sun gateway” looks suspiciously like someone has concreted the lower half. There are some huge blocks of stone used in the construction of the main platform. The museums hold some interesting artifacts, but I have no idea what they actually were as information about them was very sparse (even the Spanish descriptions were never more than a short sentance), and as mentioned previously, our guide was crap. Not that I’m bitter about the 15USD we paid him before we set off. Hope he gets mustarded.

Anyway… The photo opportunities were pretty cool, and I have found myself wondering how this pre-inca site fits in with the rest of the ancient sites we have seen on our travels - concreted or not.