Ruins of Tiwanaku Full Day Tour

You'll be picked up from your hotel in La Paz and then we'll depart en route to the mysterious Aymara ruins of Tiwanaku on the southeastern shores of Lake Titicaca, a journey of about 45 miles along asphalted road.

Upon our arrival our first stop will be the Tiwanaku Site Museum, a collection of Lithic (Stone) and Ceramic pieces unearthed at the site. Of those most prevalent are the kero ceramic cups which were ritually smashed and buried after ceremonies.

From there we will continue on to the Tiawanaku Archeological Site itself. The area may have been inhabited as early as 1500BC, as a small farming village, but it was from 300AD to 1000AD that the city-state of Tiwanaku reigned supreme, becoming an administrative center and pilgrimage site of cosmological prestige as well as a predatory state, expanding its dominion throughout Bolivia and into Chile and Peru through war, politics, trade, and religion. Thus it became the center of the Kingdom of Tiwanaku.

The site is in a state of disrepair but still stuns, as it boasts many carved images and designs along its walls and doorways, along with giant stone monoliths. The largest block is estimated to weigh 131 tons.

We'll marvel at the enormous Sun Gate, located on the Pumapunku terrace, which was elaborately carved from a single 45-ton piece of stone. Beside the creator Viracocha, the decorative frieze also features an unknown deity surrounded by what many believe to be a calendar.

The Akapana Pyramid will also not fail to surprise. Here the sculpture of a figure, possibly a puma-shaman, holding a severed head gives a macabre clue to the use of the pyramid, where remains reveal that it was used for ritual sacrifices in which people were beheaded and then disemboweled and torn apart shortly after death. Beneath the temple headless skeletons hav