Tiwanaku

There's just enough left of the Tiwanaku site that I was able to get a decent appreciation for this ancient culture. The museums are very well done, featuring several impressive stone sculptures. The highlight of the museums is the Bennett Monolith, an amazing 7-meter tall statue in excellent condition after over 2000 years. It survived the Spanish by being buried until rediscovered in the 1930s. Out in the main site, we started our tour at the Akapana Pyramid which gives a nice overview of the site. While the Sun Gate on the Kalasasaya courtyard is probably the most famous artifact here, I really liked the semi-subterranean temple. This sunken area is where the Bennett Monolith was found. The walls of the temple feature rows of numerous skull sculptures, some more like a human skull and others are more stylized.

The auxilliary site of Puma Punku is also worth a short visit. There isn't a lot to see there, but it is worth checking out the jumble of remaining building stones and walking around the perimeter.

I joined an organized tour from La Paz that was pretty cheap (about $US 13), and had a very good guide who did a nice job of explaining the site. Overall, I enjoyed learning about another impressive pre-Columbian culture.

Tiwanaku is a site with fascinating elements, but the sum of those elements do not result in a fascinating site. 

The individual elements, such as the Gate of the Sun, the monoliths, and the heads in the semi-subterranean temple (photo) are striking artifacts. For some visitors, the Gate of the Sun, with a crack in its lintel that adds to its mysterious allure, alone may be worth the price of the admission. However, other than the few interesting elements still standing (or fallen), the site is monotonous.  

Additionally, the site is heavily reconstructed with non-original materials. The walls of the Kalasasaya - the platform on which the Gate of the Sun sits - is not original with the exception of the taller stone pillars. Old drawings and photos of Tiwanaku show the stone pillars standing freely, akin to the ancient stones of Avebury. It is very likely that there were indeed stone walls between these pillars, but those stones were long ago taken from the site to be used for constructing buildings elsewhere, e.g., the church in the nearby village.

The Akapana "pyramid" is also mostly a reconstruction. Indeed, Akapana was never quite completed in antiquity and looked more like a natural hill until recently (A Spanish chronicler said of Tiwanaku, "They build their monuments as if their intent was never to finish them.")

There are two museums at Tiwanaku. One of the museums contain artifacts such as the artificially elongated skulls of the Tiwanku …

I find it hard to review the sites independant from the bad travel experience I had. Therefore first of all the circumstances and second of all the experience on site.  
 
I tried to visit Tiwuanaku twice (!) from La Paz by public transport. The first time failed unfortunately. After a nice walk over La Paz cemetery I reached the closeby spot where trufis go to Tiwuanaku when full. It was the Friday before the La Paz Anniversary at about 9 a.m. Some other tourists and locals waited there slready half an hour. The office was closed. After nothing happened for another 30 minutes we decieded to go up to El Alto Terminal Interprovincial. Big mistake not to take the efficient téleferico but a taxi. The taxi driver kicked us out as soon as reaching El Alto as he didn't knew the way to the terminal. The Uber driver afterwards got stuck in the huge markets and some parades in El Alto. Finally we took the téleferico and reached the terminal at about noon. We decided that it's too late to visit the one hour distanced Tiwuanaku now.  
 
One week later we returned to the cementary Trufi office at 08:30 a.m. and it took until 10 a.m. until the trufi was full. Not to mention that I was annoyed by the fact that they explained that the week before there was a reunion that's why they didn't operate but normally they go every day. Without apologizing of course. Then …

Tiwanaku is an easy day trip from La Paz. It takes approximate 2 hours by car from La Paz to Tiwanaku. I highly recommend to either hire a car yourself drive or take other private transport. A car with driver should not cost more as 80 USD for the day. Personally, I prefer to go private as I have more flexibility to stop at places where I want to make a photo or just look around. It takes approximate 2-3 hours to explore the archeological remains of Tiwanaku, an hour for the two museums and another hour for the nearby Pumapunku excavations. I left my hotel in La Paz at 9:30AM and was back well before dinner time, which is late in Bolivia.

The Tiwanaku ticket gives access to two separate entrances; the largest site is Tiwanaku and the smaller is Pumapunku just a kilometer away. The museums are located at the Tiwanaku site which I advise to visit first to learn about the Tiwanaku Empire. There are some interesting statues, steles, pottery, and other artifacts on display. The Bolivian government is expanding the museums collecting more artifacts from the empire in one place which is a good thing to see them together.

I enjoyed the sites, but I must admit that you can walk through it quite fast. Akapana pyramid was good. It gives from the top a good overview of the site as well. At various places there are foundation stones with pretty nice carvings but …

On what used to be close to the Southern shore of Lake Titicaca, you will find the ruins of Tiwanaku. Billed by some Bolivians as Bolivian Tikal, you will find a small pre colombian and pre inka archeological site whose history reaches back to 1500 BCE.

For a long time the area was very fertile. But climate change and deforestation severely hit. Nowadays, the shores of Lake Titicaca are a distant 10km away and the area is covered by strubs and bushes.

The site shows some nice stone works. The original pyramid is gone and hard to imagine based on the ruins that remain. As is often the case with pre columbian ruins the Spanish removed stones and used them for buildings in the nearby village, specifically the Spanish colonial church.

On site several museums display excavation finds. The big stela is quite impressive. In the end, this is a fairly simple site and not much to dial home about.

Getting There

From La Paz you can do this on your own via colectivo. I can't confirm all the details of the how to, but I can confirm that there were colectivos waiting in Tiwanaku to take you back to La Paz.

Due to being a bit time stressed and the organized tours being fairly cheap (below 20 USD) I opted for an organized tour. As is often the case most agencies seem to be selling the same tour. I booked via Diana Tours due to their …

Tiwanaku lies 72km to the west of La Paz. It's a very fine trip to get out there: you'll pass the buzzing suburb of El Alto and the quintessential Altiplano landscape with lama's, indigenous Aymara women in traditional dress, and mountain vistas.

The Tiwanaku site consists of 2 museums and an archeological site. The entrance fee for foreigners is 80 bolivianos (8 EUR), which gives you access to both museums and the site. The ceramics museum has a lot of pottery made by the Tiwanaku, as well as by their predecessors and the Inca. The "Lithic Museum" still only holds one piece - the Pachamama or Bennett Stele. It's a grand piece of work, a 7 meters high monolith, transported here from the center of La Paz where it had stood for years. It did not look as if other prominent findings were soon to join it in the "museum". Further development of both the museum and the archaeological site seems to have come to a stop. Our guide told us that there is a conflict between the local indigenous people and the Ministry of Culture on how to proceed.

The archeological site is spread out over a vast area, without many obvious highlights. The "pyramid" is just like a small hill. They hope to have it restored completely in 5 years, but that doesn't seem likely to me.

Having visited so many archeological sites in Peru, for me it was interesting to see the links between …

Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) is a complex of buildings, temples and a pyramid from pre-Inca times and is therefore Bolivia's most important archeological site.

The site consists of two museums and the archeological grounds with the buildings. One museum hosts mostly ceramic artifacts and the other one only hosted one sculpture by the time I visited it (June 2008). More artifacts and sculptures will be brought from the archeological site to the museums in the near future for preservation.

The archeological site has a piramide that covers more square meters than the one from Geops in Egypt, but is less tall. Total excavation is to be done in about 7 years. Interesting are the way the bricks are placed on the buildings (just like the Inca's used to do it later on), the ear-shaped loudspeaker, the interesting and very detailed carving on the sculptures and the faces on the wall of the Semi-subterranean Temple.