Bolivia - Tiwanaku
Working from a rumour passed on to her from Anaya Imanu and events in her own past, Lara Croft goes to explore the ruins of a Tiwanakan temple high in the Bolivian altiplano.
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Summary
The level begins with a cutscene shows Lara scaling the sheer cliffs of the Bolivian Andes, while chatting over her headset to her assistants Zip and Alister, which also serves as a means of introducing these characters. The cutscene ends with Lara jumping down to a small plateau where a waterfall runs into a smaller pool below. She tells Zip and Alister that this is the site of Tiwanaku, an ancient Incan civilization, currently in ruins. She is there on the advice of her friend Anaya who works in the country's capital, La Paz. Anaya has told Lara of a rumour about a mysterious stone dais hidden in this area.
The level begins with Lara on the edge of the cliff near the waterfall, so there is only one way to go: upriver. As she progresses, she discovers that she is not alone at the site - various armed men are also present, and aware of her arrival.
By climbing on top of a temple built into the face of the uppermost waterfall and travelling through vertiginous cliff corridors, Lara arrives at the main site of the temple of Tiwanaku. However, her rapture is disturbed by the arrival of more mercenaries in black Jeeps, as well as a helicopter. After a short firefight, Lara has the temple to herself.
Finally Lara emerges into a large circular chasm. In the middle of it stands a shelf of rock, and on top of this lies a dais and five carven stones, patrolled by the same mercenaries Lara met with before. This triggers a flashback of her mother's disappearance in Nepal when Lara was a child.
Brought out of her reverie by gunfire, Lara confronts the ringleader, a young man named James Rutland. He is carrying a strange metal artefact which he shows her. Realising it matches a similar sword-like artefact from her flashback, Lara questions him about it. However, when Rutland realises that she knows nothing of value about the fragment, he allows his mercenaries to deal with her, leaving the area in the helicopter with a mysterious blonde woman.
Lara fights of Rutland's mercenaries, and examines the dais more closely, seeing that it is identical to the one she saw in Nepal. Back at Croft manor, she remembers Rutland's words about her dead friend Amanda Evert and an old archaeological dig in Paraiso - and leaves immediately to meet Anaya in Peru.
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Notes
The temple is a wonder of engineering prowess, for as well as various traps and pitfalls, the Tiwanakans have developed sophisticated mechanisms for mining deep into the mountain and providing large scale balance and counter balance puzzles. There are no supernatural enemies, but several jaguars have taken up residence inside the temple corridors. For much of its history Bolivia has been dominated either by neighbouring tribes from Peru such as the Incas or by the Spanish invaders from the 16th century. Western Bolivia was however the centre for the Tiwanakan civilisation which Lara explores.
Enemies
Gallery
Lara standing near ruins in Bolivia.
