El Montículo, Cultural heritage park in Sopocachi, La Paz, Bolivia.
El Montículo is a heritage park in Sopocachi with stone gates dating to the 1700s, garden spaces, and a chapel positioned on elevated terrain. The grounds include one of the city's oldest working clocks, mounted on a metal frame.
According to the historian Humberto Viscarra, a 1582 earthquake caused a landslide on the Altiplano Sur that destroyed two ancient Aymara villages. A Virgin image lost in these events was later found at El Montículo. A chapel was built on the hill in honour of the Immaculate Conception; President Agustín Morales had a Gothic arcade added, which burned on 15 August 1895, and the chapel reopened on 8 December 1896.
The park's official name, Néstor Portocarrero, honours the composer of the tango Illimani, a song tied to La Paz. Each 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Virgen del Montículo is celebrated here, recalling the statue found on the hillside after the 1582 earthquake.
The lookout at 3,635 metres is reached on foot through the park; the stone gate of 1776 marks the entrance. The panorama takes in San Jorge, Miraflores, Sur, Llojeta and the Illimani. The Supu Kachi station of the Mi Teleférico yellow line stands a block west, near Plaza España.
An ornamental fountain sculpture was moved here in 1928 from another neighborhood and features Neptune with two tritons carved in marble as its centerpiece. This relocated artwork reflects how the city transformed during the 1900s.
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