Tiahuanacu
8 November 2005 (Tuesday) – La Paz to Tiahuanacu to La Paz, Bolivia
Diego, the eternal Indian chief, was trying to organise the group today to go to Tiahuanacu. I told him Henry and I were heading off separately and he looked slightly hurt. Ahem, sorry.
We went to Emmy’s hotel at the agreed time. She overslept! But she got ready in a jiffy and we took a local bus to the cemetery. When we neared the cemetery district, we asked the bus guy where we could get off for the Tiahuanacu bus and several passengers pointed out the direction. Later, loads of helpful people pointed out to us where to go to get the bus. All in different places.
We finally found a bus to the border of Peru that PASSED by Tiahuanacu so we bought the tickets and waited in a hole-in-the-wall, drinking some mate de coca. Gosh, in this tiny cafe, a sandwich cost just 1.50 bolivianos. We had been paying between 5 to 9 bolivianos for a lousy sandwich in Copacabana and Isla del Sol. See what I mean about overcharging tourists?
It soon started to rain as we pulled out of La Paz. We had not brought along any rain jacket, just things for the sun as we expected to be baked under the harsh sun at this altitude. Oh oh…
As the bus we took did not bring us right to the front of the museum and ruins, we had to walk for about 1 km from the main highway. Halfway through, we saw another ruins. Although we had not bought the tickets, we persuaded the guy to let us take a look at this site since we were already here. We would purchase the tickets later.
This site was called Puma Punku. There was no one here at this point, so we took our time to browse through the fallen stones and interesting stone masonry. As I had said, Henry was mighty knowledgeable in this, and he acted as our guide to explain what the rock structures represented. We saw Andean crosses, little doors that represent Door to the Sun, lots of rounded holes tunnelled through, ‘I’ shaped holes used for making bronze. Although not well-restored, it was interesting for us to discover other carvings like hexagons, evenly-spaced lines, slightly-eroded Tiahuanacu designs.
When we reached the museum, we were shocked it cost 80 bolivianos (US$10) to enter. But for me, I had always wanted to visit Tiahuanacu and for Henry, he had studied about this site, about how it was aligned at 45 degrees to the vertical, in line with Cajamarca, Cusco and Copacabana. He tried to persuade the ticket guy that he is Peruvian, his friendly neighbour, on a South American paycheck, not an American gringo! But nope, he still had to pay 80 bolivianos.
There were many monoliths of carved designs, in general, showing a face, two arms carrying something and lots of motifs of condors, snakes, the cactus plant called San Pedro for hallucination and other symbolisms. Henry explained many interesting details to us. He even had a book called ‘Ayni’ which was about the repeated symbol of crossed arms used in many ancient civilisations, including those from Mexico, representing the act of reciprocity. We then studied the arms on the monolith. Although it appeared to be holding something with the arms NOT crossed, we realised the hands were in reverse. Imagine, if you hold something round on your right hand, another person looking at you would not see the fingers facing outwards and pointing to the right. The fingers would be facing inwards and pointing to the right. Yet, the designs had the fingers out and pointing to the right. We realised this could only be possible if the arms were CROSSED and we were actually looking at his LEFT hand on the right side. (Hope you got what I mean) Fascinating!
After this museum, it continued to pitter patter. It was getting really cold but, as I predicted it could continue to rain, it was better than we headed out to the ruins now and then, hide out at the second museum later. So that was what we did, admiring the empty ruins in the rain, gathering mud on our boots such that we were walking around like ducks with wide webbed feet. There was the famous Puerta del Sol – Door of the Sun. And the other gateway where a monolith was placed directly in line when the sun would rise exactly in front of it on some special dates. All very interesting and wet.
Back at the second museum where we saw more potteries, an Aymara mummy, some bronze tools and a whole school load of visiting children, aged between 7 to 9. As we waited in the lobby for the bus, the curious children kept staring at us. One little boy broke the ice by shaking hands with me and soon, the entire swarm of them flooded towards me, extending their hands. Then, on their note books which they had religiously copied the points around the museum, they wanted my autograph. So, I signed like, I don’t know, 50 of my name in Chinese. I was just pounced on. I could not see a thing outside. I later learnt that so were Henry and Emmy. Hahaaa…
It rained heavier by then and we froze all the way back to La Paz. Today, it was not possible to see La Paz from the top of the basin. It was entirely covered in clouds.
That night, more out of pure self-torture than curiosity, we watched a Bolivian movie. It was so horrible that it was good. It was hilarious and cracked me up tonnes of times, although I did not always understand every word they said. I was just watching with my jaws wide opened. I could not believe what was going on. It was so so so so bad. Well, another Bollywood in the making, perhaps!
Tags: 09) Bolivian Rhapsody, La Paz
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