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The command was completed on October 20th, 1548, when "the discordant ones in agreement, in peace and love, joined, and a town of peace was founded for perpetual memory", as the plate sent seven years later by the King Carlos V reads.
La Paz was founded; headquarters of the government of Bolivia and capital of the department of the same name. Since its foundation, the city has known how to harmonize those features of its cultural and architectural inheritance, with discreet flashes of modernity that constitute authentic brushstrokes of the future in the andean height.
Squares invaded by hundreds of hungry doves... peace doves?, markets of crafts in which words in quechua and aymara are whispered, a valley that resembles to the moon surface, streets in perpetual ascent that end in sublime colonial churches... but, it is necessary to walk slowly, to avoid the rigors of the 3,640 m.a.s.l.
Days of peace and of an exaggeratedly blue sky in one of the jewels of the Andes that glows due to the protector presence of the Illimani (6,403 meters of altitude), the powerful guardian of the most important city in Bolivia, arisen when the clamors of the civil war ceased among the Spanish conquerors.
Tiahuanaco: This impressive temple is located at 72 kilometers from La Paz and was built by the men of this culture, that developed in the highland, approximately between the years 1580 B.C and 1172 A.C.
The tiahuanacotas archeological remains -consisted of a ceremonial and a religious area- are one of the most splendid shows of the architectural development reached by the first inhabitants of the Andean heights.
The Door of the Sun, the Temple of Kalasasaya, the Pyramids of Akhapana and Puma Punku, the monoliths Fraile and Ponce and a great quantity of tenon heads, are the main monuments that can be appreciated.
Town of Tiahuanaco: Around the archaeological area, we can find the small town of Tiahuanaco, in which the colonial church of San Pedro, whose walls were lifted with stones extracted from the walls of the pre-colombinan temple are remarkable.
Laja: located before Tiahauanaco and accordingto the historical data it was here where the captain Alonso de Mendoza founded, originally, the city of Nuestra Señora de La Paz; however, three days later, the inclemency of the climate made him change his mind. At the present time, the biggest attraction in this town is its colonial church.
Valley of the Moon: If there was not the asphalt serpentine or there were no coughs due to the combustion of the automobiles, you can even think that you have left the earth and have been transferred to the surface of the moon, because at this corner of La Paz -at less than 20 kilometers from the center- the erosion has given some incredible, surprising formsto the rocks. Forms that are strange to this world.
Chachaltaya mountain: it is the highest skiing area of the world. The Chacaltaya (5,580 meters high), is one of the mountains of the Real Mountain range of the Oriental Andes and it is only at 36 kilometers from La Paz. From their summit, you can appreciate the cold summits of the Illimani, the Mururata and the Huayna Potosí, among others, in all their magnificence.
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