Cuenca - Ingapirca Temple

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Today we visited the village of Ingapirca, famous in Ecuador for its Inca Temple. First we started with a short visit to the village’s market - once again a colourful affair and we were snapping away at the beautiful local costumes and cute animals.

Our guide, Juan Muňoz ([e-mail], cel (593) 9-8658307), made our visit to Ingapirca Temple interesting. He was one of the best guides we’ve had and knew everything about everything. He explained the set up of the ancient city and how the rooms would have been used, how one of the areas of the temple was filled with beautiful women who were brought there to “grow” the Incan empire. The temple started off centuries before however by the Caňari people who built very differently to the Incans. Their buildings were conical and rougher around the edges. The Incas’ stonework on the temple was beautifully done, some with a sort of pillow effect and so well preserved. The Incans overthrew the Caňaris in 1500 or so and they ruled there for only 30 years or so before the Spanish came and conquered. The museum there was very good, filled with some of the pottery, skeletons and jewellery from the site.

Juan took us for lunch and then we were back in Cuenca by 4pm where he dropped us at a private bus company for our trip to Guayaquil that night.

5.30 pm and we were off on the trip through the massive Cajas National Park to get to Guayaquil (only 3.5 hours away). The National Park was outstandingly beautiful and perhaps the most impressive scenery we’ve encountered on our whole trip so far. The valley was green, lakes were everwhere, the mountains were jagged skyscrapers and it was just so dramatic. We were travelling above 3000 metres much of the time and it got chilly up there. Wish we’d taken our Kwells though ... poor Amy got to about 2 hours in and was sick, unfortunately not all in the sick bag either ... needless to say the driver put his foot down for the last hour and wasn’t too happy with us when we got to the end of the trip. Then the taxi driver tried to overcharge us. Not a great introduction to Guayaquil. However, the city looked modern and nice so maybe we’ll give it a day or so when we return from the Galapagos. The hotel was OK and was safe and comfortable. Most importantly they let us leave a bag behind so we didn’t have to take it on the flight with us.

Off to the Galapagos in the morning. Would it live up to all the hype?

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Photos

Ingapirca Temple
One of the Llamas that graze at the temple. They were on "heat" so there was a lot of crazed llamas running over the site while we were there.