“Even with centuries of erosion, not all ruins are equal.” – Old Sean
Ever Higher
My first long distance trip out of Cuenca took me through a series of small towns gradually rising up into the mountains. The central valley of Ecuador is sort of a unique land, difficult to reach under most circumstances.
After returning to Cuenca, I had a full week of a normal schedule. I took my Spanish classes, studied at the library, whined at the gym and wandered around the downtown area to make sure I hadn’t missed any other interesting attractions.
It turns out, I did.
Museum Cocoa turned out to be quite the little find. A narrow building tucked into an unassuming street serve Ecuadorian specialty chocolates. This includes local dark varieties, as well as spicy chocolates, mind and herbal chocolates and, for the sake of the season, tiny jack-o-lantern shaped chocolates.
The chocolate bits are really beautiful, with sleek coloring such as a patterned, uncommonly bright green, a shiny, almost beetle-like shell of irridecent blue, a rose-shaped mold of sleepy maroon and tiny swirls of oranges circled onto perfect wafers. The interior of the museum has interesting little facts in Spanish regarding the nature of the chocolates and a beautiful artificial tree with rainbow-colored coco tree seeds hanging off of it.
Visiting Ingapirca
My next notable trip was to Ingapirca, which was admittedly a bit of an early-morning struggle. The issue with basing out of Cuenca is the same as anywhere in Ecuador.
Trips elsewhere are a considerable time investment. In this case, it was an hour and a half bus ride out to the town of Canar followed by a swift bus exchange up to Ingapirca. The bonus here is the whole trip cost me less than five dollars.
Ingapirca is a settlement right next to a large series of ruins given the same name. The ruins are famous for being the largest Incan stronghold in Ecuador. But that being said, they’re not terribly huge. A person can easily traverse the entire thing within an hour of walking. The ruins are famously promoted as the Machu Picchu of Ecuador, and while I’m sure it operates as a pleasant warm up, the ruins hardly live up to the sheer size or altitude of their southern competitor.
It’s also important to note that the ruins aren’t purely Incan. The foundations were created by the Canari, a people subjected (while retaining an unclear amount of autonomy) by the Incan empire shortly before the Spaniards arrived.
Entering the Ruins
They’re still a really pleasant attraction, however. I spent considerable time in the upper museum, which housed relics, stone curved chopping blades, rocks used for grinding grains, pictures of indigenous attire and samples of the local foods grown on the slopes of these mountains, most of which I’ve never even heard of. All of the signs are in Spanish, so a translation app, a guide or proficiency in the language is somewhat important here.
Like much of the Andes Mountains, similar weather conditions prevail. Mornings are bright and usually sunny while the afternoon potentially brings in clouds and rain. The ticketing booth of Ingapirca opens at 8:30 in the morning (or a little later if security or the employees are running a bit late). But the actual site opens at 9:00 instead. People aren’t really brought in individually at this time (likely because of COVID trying to limit the population within) but rather in small groups of fifteen to twenty under the watchful eye of a tour guide.
Well, I didn’t want to be under the watchful eye of a tour guide, and I was looking forward to taking photos without people littering my background. So I branched off from the group early, pretended to not understand an iota of Spanish (or accented English) and meandered off.
Around the Ruins
The first thing I got to see upon entry were the llamas. A small herd of brown-furred creatures plodded freely aroudn the ruins. Most interestingly, a pair of them got into an intense scuffle which sounds serious, but fighting llamas simply don’t have the shock value or violence of other animals. Goats butting heads can sound like a thunderbolt. Horses rearing look like the lash of stone whips with their enormous hooves. Elephants have incredible, earth-shaking mass. Even placid animals like cows have horns, bulk and bellows to work with.
Llamas… llamas just have necks. So a llama fight is probably only second to a giraffe fight in terms of aggressive neck sparring. Which makes it terribly disorienting to watch, until a tour guide ran forward with an umbrella to separate the two creatures.
Our group continued to walk through the ruins, which are mostly a series of decayed but clearly preserved platforms and walls while I skipped ahead, occasionally stopping to pet a small white dog that intersected paths with me on several occassions. The ruins are primarily in the shape of a giant half-crescent curving along the interior of a high valley. Supposedly, the shape was rooted in the Canari religion, a moon-worshiping civilization.
However, the main attraction of the site is the Sun Temple, a clearly Incan architectural design which remains higher and more thoughouly interact than much of the rest of the ruins. The Incans, naturally, were notorious sun-worshippers as a major tenant of their belief system. The Incan buildings generally used their famous “pillow-shaped” stones where were expertly chiseled, with no discernable space between the stones. The Canari preferred using looser stones with strong motor in between.
Lasting Stones
Other structures included deep troughs cut into the hard dirt, distinct drainage ditches leading into the lowlands. Large round pools of careful stone represented long-empty storage areas for surplus foods and goods. The Sun Temple was angled in such a way that sunlight would enter through slats on the walls to lighten holy objects during the summer solstice. There was also a collective grave containing the bones of a priestess and several other humans beside an astronomical tracking stone and a modern replica of an ancient Ecuadorian house.
Appetite for ruins sated, I returned to the bus stop and slowly napped my way back to Cuenca. While I’m happy to have visited Ingapirca, I don’t think it was worth a four hour round trip.
However, stopping at Ingapirca while en route to other destinations in Ecuador is a splendid detour.
So another week in the southern hemisphere passes. I only have three weeks left before I head out once more. My hope is that next weekend I’ll get to visit Puyo and see a portion of the Amazon Basin. I originally wanted to make that my plan this weekend, but time chuckled softly while passing me by.
So until I can keep up,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written October 9th 2021
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Skog Å Kust Watertight Day Bag
Everyone should have a day bag. My favorite is the Skog Å Kust Watertight Bag. It’s easy to sling over my shoulders and lets me walk without fear of m devices getting damaged in the rain. Better yet, I can go swimming with electronics whenever I need to.
