January 26th, 2015
We wake up at Mallki Hostel in Cuenca for 8:30 and have a quick breakfast of toast and bananas before heading out into the street and grabbing a taxi towards the main bus terminal (2-3 Dollars by meter). Our group is down one member from yesterday Chris deciding he wants a day just to relax and read, a sentiment I certainly understand.
Once at the bus station we ask around and find the little office tucked away in a corner near the departing buses. We buy our tickets for 2.50 each and head towards Ecuador’s most important Incan Site: the Ingapirca ruins. It’s not Machu Picchu, which I will get to this spring/summer, but if you like ruins, it’s pretty damn cool. By the way, in Cuenca there’s lots of tours offered to this site, they typically run 45 dollars. Including the peanuts and drinks I spent 12 dollars on my day. So skip the tour, the public bus is more interesting anyway, and totally safe.
The bus again heads up into the mountains, back the way I came from Guamote. We’re stuck in Cuenca traffic for a short time before escaping the city and heading up into more terrific scenery, something Ecuador has an absurd amount of.
The bus ride lasts just over two hours, taking us through some bustling Ecuadorian towns full of entire Pigs hanging out from of restaurants, and lots of colourful Indigenous clothing. Eventually we climb out of the bus after our driver has told us that the late bus is not running today. During the week buses are supposed to run at 9:30 and 1:30 leaving Cuenca. And 1:30, 4:30 returning to Cuenca. But I think that second 1:30-4:30 schedule is pretty intermittent. Luckily you really don’t need more than 2 hours to see what the ruins have to offer.
I get there and use my lucky student card from University of Ottawa (somehow a 1 year program equalled 5 years validity) and pay my half price entrance fee of 3 USD before heading up to a little convenient store with the group to buy some snacks. Dan introduces me to some peanuts coated in caramelized sugar that I’m sure I’ll regret ever trying once the weight gain sets in.
Looking at the ruins from outside, they’re impressive though nowhere near the scale of Pompeii in Italy, or Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Still definitely a good place for my first taste of the ancient Americas.
We then get called over by our tour guide Fausta (tour included in the price of 3 dollars or 6 for non students) and he leads our way into the ruins.
I’m glad of my Spanish and Russell and I translate between us for Clara and Dan. (They do offer english tours but less frequently. I believe there’s more on the weekends.) The ruins are quite worn down in all but one section, as they were left unprotected for centuries, and large sections of the walls were only rediscovered in 1971.
We learn about the Incas stone silo storage system with small vented openings allowing the wind to dry the grain. We also get pointed to a hallucinogenic tree that the Incans and used for many different things. The Canaris, the people who inhabited the area before the Incans conquered them, made use of it too. Fausta tells us that rubbing the salve on your skin will make you lose all your senses and gain some other ones. Interesting stuff.
We continue along through the ruins and come to one of many uses of the plant, a gravestone for a Canari Queen, Marked by a stone not dissimilar to our modern day tombstones. Fausto tells us that this a rare case where the Incans did not destroy everything they conquered, leaving this grave undisturbed as a sign of respect. He also tells us that the Canari’s drugged 7 of the Queens most faithful servants, and while they were outside of their senses, buried them alive with her, so that she might be properly served in the afterlife. Scary stuff and made me think of this picture.
But here’s the real ones.
As we circle the ruins we snap pictures of the remains of walls, houses and rooms, amazed to think of what it must have been like in it’s full splendour.
We walk past a long line of huge stones reclaimed from villagers and churches, learning that this is just a tiny portion of what has been stolen over the years.
From there we head up into the temple of the Sun, who was the Incans Primary god. The structure existed before them though it was largely rebuilt. Prior to the Incan arrival it was the temple of the moon though, the Canari’s main god.
The structure is certainly the most impressive part of the ruins and as we wander around we learn all about it, including the sun festival on June 21st, when the only original opening in the structure is perfectly aligned with the sun. We learn that only Dancers, Priests and Shamans were allowed in the actual temple, and they lived in houses just below it.
We take some photos inside the temple of the sun, and marvel at the lovely view under the surprisingly blue sky before Fausto ends the tour but suggest we take a little walk to see the Face of the Incas, a huge natural rock formation just a few minutes from the ruins. There’s just enough time before the bus leaves so we hurry down from the temple of the sun and onto the indicated path.
We pass two young kids who seem intent on surprising us, crouching low in the grass before losing the nerve at the last second and popping up and waving at us. Their happiness when we wave back is palpable and they end up pulling the same thing when we return a while later.
As we walk we are offered “authentic” incan stones and ruins by an old lady in one of the houses. I highly doubt they are real but she’s very nice about it, and before long we’re continuing along our path.
We take some stairs down into a small gorge on our right and then look to our lefts where we see the face. It’s quite a strong formation and we try to decide if it’s natural or carved before hurrying back up to the bus which ends up leaving at about 1:20 Pm.
We pay another 2.50 and relax on our way bask to Cuenca.
Dinner is more Indian food with Russell and Clara and then more late night cribbage a game which is more fun than it has any right to be. There’s a lot of spectacular things about travelling and I love them all. But sometimes sitting at a table with cool people from God knows where in the world, and playing a simple game of cards, is just as much fun. I don’t know why, but it’s true for me.
Tomorrow Russell and Clara are heading north on the way to meet Clara’s parents in Quito, so I’ll go back to travelling alone. At the time of sleep I was toying with the idea of checking out a waterfall before heading to Guayaquil, and, it being a water fall, and me being me, the next morning I quickly found myself on a local bus. But that’s a story for next time! Here’s a couple more pictures of Ecuador’s most important Incan site.
