Tiwanaku II: A sun that doesn’t want to abandon the old stones to the storm

A frame for the infinite

Lake Titicaca is a dying sea, at 3,812 metres (12,507 ft) of altitude. When the capital city of the old Empire, called today Tiwanaku, wasn’t history but a powerful city it had a port near the lake one millennium ago. Today the lake is fifteen kilometres (approximately nine miles) far away, and the city is a broken jigsaw with blogs of different periods and styles.

The empire dominated the Peruvian south, parts of the Argentinian and Chilean north, and the Bolivian west, closer to its end in the tenth century. Basically it was an empire of the highlands and the closer coast. After their fall kingdoms would occupy its place until the emerging of Inca Empire in Qosqo (Cuzco) in the fifteenth century.

But not everything is history. After the Spanish invasion we still conserve our traditions, etiquette, way of thought, despite the contemporary governments the language, actually the people culture. The most damaged part was the higher culture in science and arts. But that is a story for another day.

Kalasasaya

Divine nature

Kalasasaya covers an hectare and parts are closed due to archeological investigation, but still it’s a beautiful place. The soldiers, priests, government, and powerful men are replaced by archeologists, local workers and tourists. There is a little town near with hotels. The entrance fee is cheap, I think as a foreigner for the whole Tiwanaku I paid more or less eighty Bolivians, what translates to not even fifteen dollars. Almost nothing to see ancestors.

A welcome darkness coming

The sky is amazing, isn’t it?

Flying in middle of the storm

Ears for the storm

This is Ponce stela, named that way in honor of the archeologist that discovered it, Carlos Ponce Sanginés. As you can see it has its shoulder marked with a cross. That means that it was known by Spaniards and that was a way to practice an exorcism in the Lord. Fortunately it was buried but not destroyed.

It’s cold, perhaps a hug… (published before)

Why am I in a boxing ring??!!

I left Kalasasaya to see Akapana pyramid.

Akapana

Power of Akapana

Akapana although looks like a hill actually it is a Pyramid. According to Wikipedia a Spaniard called Oyaldeburo destroyed it in the eighteenth century searching treasures, unconscious that he was destroying the architectonic treasure. Originally it was finished with ashlars and there was a temple in shape of Chakana in its top (a Chakana is a sacred symbol in the shape of a cross with arms of the same length) and sculptures. The adobe shape is a modern work of reconstruction. I prefer it that way, so I know that is original and what an hypothesis.

Akapana remains and the storm

A mirrored structure above it

A bit closer to the pyramid

Steps to nowhere

Flowers for a dead king in Akapana

Seeing the sky

The invisible made visible

The wind was stronger. I had saw, besides me, five tourists more. But with the wind I didn’t see them anymore.

Infinite flowers

Road to a secret

Light and darkness

End

The wardens told me that the time was over. I walked the road to the highway to take a bus to come back to Peru. A last glimpse to the ruins showed me a rainbow, someday I could get back.

Collision of a rainbow

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