A Walk Around Tiwanaku

I was dreading the part in the museum. I hate guided tours. I prefer to fly around history absorbing the dramatically interesting parts and allowing the remaining facts and exhibits to hold others in front of glass display cases while I skip on. Fortunately therefore for me,as Victor pointed out,the museum at Tiwanaku provides the best example of corruption in Bolivia. A house was built to hold the precious excavated exhibits and only three months in to its lifetime it was struck by a deluge that caused the ceilings of many ill built rooms to collapse. Regrettably before going to the archaeological site itself we could only spend time in one room.

Inside was a 7metre high Pachamama, or Earth Mother. Women are sacred in Bolivia. They are honoured as the head of every family. They hold the power and provide the life and sustenance of every family unit. They are also evident at the head of every political parade. Even if occasionally on the phone!

The smaller statue of Pachamama, ( seen above), stands at the edge of one of the sacrificial sites. The site is visited every January by Evo Morales. It is here he is announced to be the political leader of the indigenous peoples of Bolivia. At this statue erected in the time of power of the Aymara he declares his nation to be a nation of plurinacionales and watches while a sacrifice, presumably of a Llama is made on the sacrificial stone several metres away. A stone I rested upon to support myself in the thin altiplano air as the intense sun shining at almost 5000 metres threatened to overwhelm me.

One should not in reality touch the stones but Victor in full flow with his passion for historical facts did not notice as I slumped upon it and felt the heat of the ancient Aymara rush in to my blood. I will either be blessed or cursed, but if what happened next is anything to go by, my life post stone touching is likely to unfold in a very pleasant way.

The beautiful Brazilian poet Guillhermes Turri Frazzatto who had slept the whole way on the bus began to talk to me about his poetry. Incredibly while we were still mid tour, and not yet advised about the relevance of the gate of the sun, he produced his i phone and began to read to me from his latest works. There is something about guttural and lyrical portuguese thrown out across the stillness of a sunlit Altiplano that is captivating, particularly when every third word is ' amor '.

Guillherme trailed me around the temples and then even though I was almost fainting in the heat and overwhelmed by the intensity of the light he handed me his i phone and ask that I read his portuguese words for myself. ' You can understand Spanish he told me, you will understand; you have the special quality that is needed to understand my words'.
He had no idea that every God of the Aymara, los dioses, were walking with me, stirred by the sudden and unusual activity upon their sacred and sacrificial stone.