Chapter 9 Chapter 8 The Lake on the Roof of the World

La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, is located in a magnificent valley on a plateau 2 miles above sea level.The whole city crouches on the rugged valley floor.This steep valley, thousands of feet deep, was formed by a flood in ancient times that carried a large number of stones and gravel from the mountain. With the "biblical apocalypse" landscape endowed by nature, the city of La Paz exudes a unique, slightly worn-out style.Narrow streets, gloomy houses, majestic cathedrals, cinemas and hamburger restaurants with neon lights flashing until late at night, all reveal a mysterious style and make people intoxicated.Roaming the city is a chore for a man on foot, unless his lung capacity is exceptionally large.The entire downtown area of ​​La Paz is built on steep hillsides.

La Paz Airport sits on the edge of the region's unique Altiplano, where temperatures are low and the altitude is almost 5,000 feet higher than the city of La Paz itself.It was midnight when my partner Sansa and I arrived here from Lima due to a flight delay.We huddled in the cold airport hall, drinking coca tea (Coca Tea) served in plastic cups by the service staff to prevent physical discomfort caused by the lack of oxygen at high altitudes.After some delays and a lot of trouble, we took back our luggage from the customs officers, hurriedly hailed an old-fashioned American-made taxi, and drove down the mountain with bumps and wobbles, and entered the dimly lit building at the bottom of the valley. city ​​of.

The legendary cataclysm At about 4 o'clock in the afternoon the next day, we rented a jeep and headed towards Lake Titicaca.The car shuttled through the turbulent traffic tide of the Bolivian capital day and night, rushed out of the heavy traffic, drove out of the clusters of high-rise buildings and slums, climbed up, and entered the vast and open plateau platform with fresh air outside the city. As we drove out of La Paz, we passed desolate suburbs and endless slums lined with garages and dumps.The farther you go from La Paz, the sparser the houses, until you can barely see any people.Outside the car window, all you can see is a vast, treeless prairie stretching all the way to the sky, connecting with the snow peaks of the Cordillera Real. The scenery is so majestic and magnificent that people will never forget it.However, this place also has an ethereal atmosphere - it feels like we are entering a mythical kingdom floating in the clouds.

Our ultimate destination is Tihuanaco, but we plan to go to the town of Copacabana (C0pacabana) on the stone cape on the southern shore of Lake Titicaca to stay in an inn, spend the night and then go on the road.Before reaching the town, we stopped at a fishing village called Tiguine and took a crude car ferry across a body of water.At dusk we followed the rough, narrow road, winding up the steep slopes to a ridge in the high mountains.From here, a contrasting landscape suddenly unfolds before the eyes: the lake below is endless, dark, hidden in the shadows everywhere, and the mountains in the distance are like jagged snow peaks, but they are still brilliant in the bright sunlight. Down.

From the very beginning, Lake Titicaca fascinated me deeply.I know that it lies on a plateau about 12,500 feet above sea level, and that the borders of Peru and Bolivia run through it. Its total area is 3,200 square miles, and the lake is 138 miles long and about 70 miles wide.I also knew that this lake, almost a thousand feet deep, had a mysterious geological history. The relevant mysteries of Lake Titicaca, as well as the answers of scholars and experts, are listed below: ① Lake Titicaca now lies on a plateau more than 2 miles above sea level, yet the area around the lake is dotted with millions of fossilized marine shells.This shows that at a certain period in history, due to geological changes, the entire plateau platform here was forced to rise from the seabed; as a result of this crustal rise, today's South American continent was formed.In this process, a large amount of seawater was drawn up with countless marine organisms and left on the Andes Mountains①.Experts believe that this phenomenon occurred about 100 million years ago.

②The strange thing is that even though this geological change occurred in extremely ancient times, until today, Lake Titicaca still preserves "marine fish life"②; in other words, although it is now hundreds of miles away from the ocean, Lake Titicaca Many of the fish and crustaceans in Lake Kabul are marine (rather than freshwater) organisms.It is surprising that the fisherman's salvage in the lake includes seahorses.An expert noted: "The presence of green hook prawns and other marine life in this lake compels us to admit that at some point in history the lake was much more saline than it is today, or, more correctly It can be said that the water of this lake originally came from the ocean. When the land rose, the sea water was trapped in the Andes, and it has been isolated from the ocean ever since."③

③Due to space limitations, we can only discuss the geological changes of Lake Titicaca formed here.Since its formation, this vast "inland sea" and the surrounding high plateau have undergone several other topographical upheavals.Most notably, the ancient lake shoreline that still exists on the surrounding land shows that the size of Lake Titicaca has undergone substantial changes.What is confusing is that the shoreline of this lake is not horizontal, but slopes all the way from north to south.At its northernmost point it was measured 295 feet above the level of Lake Titicaca; on its southern shore, some 400 miles away, it was 274 feet lower than the present level.Based on this evidence (and many others), geologists deduce that the plateau around Lake Titicaca is still rising, but unevenly, with a higher rise in the north and a lower rise in the south.Experts believe that the terrain changes involved here have little to do with changes in the height of Lake Titicaca (although such changes did occur), but are more closely related to changes in the height of the surrounding land⑤.

④Because it takes a long time for major geological changes, it is difficult for us to explain this fact from a geological point of view: Tihuanaco City used to be a port with complete docks and docks, located on the shore of Lake Titicaca⑥.The problem is that today's Tiwanaco ruins have been exiled 12 miles from the lake's south shore, more than 100 feet above the current lake shoreline.Based on this, we can infer that after the establishment of Diwanaco City, the surrounding terrain has changed. If the lake level has not dropped significantly, the land has risen significantly. ⑤ In any case, the region has clearly experienced dramatic, large-scale topographical changes.Several of these, such as the rise of plateau platforms from the sea floor, undoubtedly occurred in ancient geological times, before the establishment of human civilization.The other several topographical changes are not so ancient, and should have occurred after the establishment of the city of Dihuanaco.So now the question is: When exactly was the city of Dihuanaco founded?

Orthodox historians believe that the date of the construction of Tihuanaco City cannot be earlier than 500 AD ⑦.Another school of scholars put forward a different view.Their opinion is not accepted by most scholars, but it is more in line with the scale of geological changes that have occurred in this area.They challenged orthodoxy based on mathematical/astronomical calculations by Arthur Posnanski, a professor at the University of La Paz, and Love Muller, a professor at the University of Potsdam (the latter also proposed a new view on the date of the construction of the ancient city of Machu Picchu ), pushes up the date of construction of the main building of Dihuanaco City to 15,000 BC.This school of scholars also believes that around 11,000 BC, the city of Tihuanaco was severely damaged in a geological change, and it was separated from the shore of Lake Titicaca⑧.

In Chapter 11 of this book, we will explore the findings of Potunanski and Müller further.The research of these two scholars shows that the great Andean city of Tihuanaco once flourished in the dark night of the last ice age in prehistory. Notes: ①Arthur Posnanski, "Tiwanaco: The Cradle of the Americans", Vol. 3, p. 192. Professor Arthur Pnsnansky, Tlahuarcu: The Cradle of American Man, Ministry of Education, La Paz, BOlivia, 1957, volume m, p. 192．See Emmanuel Velikovsky's "Earth in Upheaval", pp. 77-78: "Experts have investigated the topography of the Andes and the biology of Lake Titicaca, and have made reports on this lake and on the same plateau. A chemical analysis of the water quality of other lakes confirmed that this plateau was at one time at sea level, 12,500 feet lower than it is today... The lakes on the plateau were originally part of the bay... At a certain period in geological history, the entire plateau platform , with its lakes, rising from the seabed..." Immanuel Velikorsky, Earth in Upheaual, Pocket Books, New York, 1977, pp. 77～78．

② "Di Hua Naco", Volume 3, page 192. ③ "Di Hua Naco", Volume 1, p. 28. Tiahuanacu, J． J． Augustln, New York, 1945, Volume 1, p. 28 ④ Bellamy, "Building Before the Flood: The Problem of the Ruins of Dihuanaco", p. 57. H． S． Bellamy, Built Before the Flood: The Problem of the Tiahuanaco Ruins, Faber & Faber, Iondon, 1943, p.57. ⑤ Same as above, page 59. ⑥ "Dihuanaco", Volume 3, pp. 192-196.See also Bolivia, p. 156. Bollvla, Lonely Planet Publications, Hawthorne, Australia, 1992, p. 156． ⑦Ian Cameron, "The Kingdom of the Sun God: A History of the Andes and Their Inhabitants", pp. 48-49. Ian Cameron, Kingdom of the Sun Good: A History of the Andes and Their People, Guild Publishing, London, 1990, PP. 48~49． ⑧ "Tihuanaco", Volume 2, Page 91 and Volume 1, Page 39