Tiwanaku, La Paz Markets and the Dinos in Sucre

 

Ok so this is going to be little more than a photo story, rather than a fully-fledged blog entry, as we also have to update our Amazonian adventures so here goes….

Tiwanaku is home to an extremely valuable archaeological site of pre-Incan ruins.  The race were superb architects, shaping a polishing sand stones to create near-perfect sheer city walls and intricately inscribed monoliths and statues.  In addition, these people were phenomenal astronomers and had used there calculations of the sun’s trajectory to create the ‘Sun Gate’ which would capture the sun at specific points in their calender.

What we found most beguiling was that this is built on the Altiplano of Bolivia – 4000m elevation; and yet it is situated on a flat plain.  A great day out.

 

 

 

 

La Paz boasts the accolade of being the capital city with the highest altitude in the world (between 3400m and 3700m depending where you stand!), thankfully we had acclimatised in Salar and so didn’t feel the effect too much (apart from me being a little grouchy at times).  Ems was in here element as we trawled through the exotic Witches Market, where the ladies trade every lotion and potion, charms and dried llama foetus (honestly) to the willing punter.  In a country as cheap (or more accurately really good value) as Bolivia my darling girlfriend still managed to burn about £100, mostly on 100% alpaca wool, which I am told is as rare as rocking-horse droppings back in the UK.  It’s a colourful, busy, crazy city, where I ate the hottest curry of my entire life and will be unique in our memories if only for the views from atop our hotel (see the top pic).

 

  

 

This last mini-entry is a quick description of our day out to see some genuine dinosaur footprints in Sucre, Bolivia.  The footprints in the large picture were made by the largest dinosaur of all time, the Argentinosaurus (answers on a postcard if you can guess how this dino got it’s name).  It was discovered by miners quarrying the park: to put into context, these tracks are now vertical tracks that have shifted due to tectonic movement (they were previously at horizontal ground level).  A unique day out learning about dinosaurs was made all the more fun by our fabulous guide Juan-Carlos, who had a genuine enthusiasm for all thing dino.  

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