Our job was to move the stone using completely natural and ancient means, only using people, ropes, posts, and some natural lubricant of some sort (water, fish or vegetable oil, algae).

Our stone sat up on a hill with about a 45 degree slope for about a 1/3 of the distance. Once we got it moving, it was going to move on its own. At the base of the slope were boulders of all sizes making up a varied jagged beach that was anything but flat. Our first job was to turn this minefield of boulders into a smooth stone beach, a ramp that we could pull the boat next to in order to “simply” slide the stone across. That is exactly what we did.

We had a crew of about 20 Aymaras from La Isla del Sol, The Island of the Sun, that worked for about a week filling in the crevasses and troughs of the boulder field with thousands of stones of all sizes until we had a smooth tract of beach, a ramp, that almost looked as if it had been poured from a cement truck. Yet it had not. It was all natural. It was perfect.

The stone was planted on its side at a very sharp angle. We used the eucalyptus tree poles as levers to push and pry the stone loose as we pulled with one very thick rope wrapped around the stone a single time.

We used additional eucalyptus poles much the way we did moving the boat, by placing them in front of the stone like a track. We would force the ends under the stone as much as possible. We primarily used water to lubricate the wood and the stone to decrease the amount of friction and ease the force necessary to move the stone. There were between 25 and 40 of us at any given time over a three day time frame, a time that could have been greatly reduced had the Aymara crew not planned it as such in order to receive additional days’ wages.

The boat was pulled along side the ramp. Logs were placed from the ramp to the boat, forming a bridge for the stone to slide across. The height of the ramp was perfect for the boat. The water was about 2.5 feet deep at the shallowest part here. The boat was now drafting about 22 inches since it had had more than a week to soak water. That was expected, and also as expected, the additional water acted as ballast, stabilizing the boat beyond our expectations.

As additional precautions we tied a rope to the very top of the mast and stretched it over the opposite side of the boat from where the stone was going to be loaded. With the other end of the rope we tied it about 50 feet away around gigantic boulders on the shore. Between the boat and ramp we securely lashed 2 large poles to the hull of the boat, dropping almost to the lake floor. These two precautions were to help keep the boat from tilting severely under the weight of the stone as is was being dragged across the ramp to the boat.

My original idea to support the weight of the stone on the boat was to place three long poles, one on each side and one in the middle, on top of the totora deck running from bow to stern, to distribute the weight of the stone. Then we were going to place poles across these, side to side. Somehow at the last minute I allowed others to convince me that we only needed the poles from side to side. This proved to be a mistake, albeit not fatal.

Once again we used the poles as levers to push as we used one large rope wrapped around the stone to pull it across the bridge of eucalyptus. Because we did not have the 3 long poles from bow to stern to distribute the weight, the boat did bend more in the middle, yet still supported the stone solidly. Furthermore, we were only drafting about 2 feet!

 

Ramp After

The same location as above, but the ramp is complete as our 9 ton stone is being dragged into position.

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Ready!

The stone is in position on the ramp to load to the boat.

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Stone Almost on the Boat

The Aymaras from La Isla del Sol are pushing as the Bolivian Navy is pulling.

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