Friday Apr 13/12 update
So, who is superstitious?
Certainly not us!
Today meant a quick trip to Coopera to change our monthly
Certificate Of Deposit. Then we headed
over to Bettye & Chris’ apartment in the Palermo on Ordonez Lasso to play cards for
the afternoon. Chris is another trivia
buff so we quite enjoyed their company.
Then we all went out for a delightful supper at the
California Kitchen. The meal was an
absolute treat, accompanied by dos cervezas, and a wonderful trio singing
mostly show tunes.
That was today’s excitement.
Hugs to all.
Saturday April 14/12
update
My language buddy, Juan Matute, picked me up at 8am and we
headed off to the Ingapirca Inca ruins.
Bella begged off going because of the cost for both of us to go. I do think she would have enjoyed it though.
I asked Juan if I could drive, because he is a new, and
nervous, driver and he did not even hesitate to accept my offer. However we had to run to the Banco Pichincha
for him to get cash, because he had lost his bank card, so that delayed our
departure by 1.5 hours.
The road we take is the PanAmerican highway to Quito which
is mostly concrete and not bad at all, but in places it is narrow and
criss-crossing up mountainsides so if you get behind a loaded gasoline truck,
as we always seem to do, it is a long while until you can get by him.
Juan’s car concerned me right away because the torque-steer
was most dramatic and unusual so I urged him to get it checked out before he
ever goes on the highway with it again.
I actually got out to shake the wheels and fully expected the wheel to
come off in my hands but they shocked me when they felt rock solid. I have driven hundreds of cars over 50 years
and have never felt anything like it, heavily steering left on acceleration and
overcorrecting to the right when decelerating.
I was glad we made it home in one piece and I was doubly glad that I was
driving.
Very early in our drive Juan pointed out the statue of the
Virgin Mary on a mountaintop overlooking a town.
We saw many folks plowing fields with oxen and a rudimentary
single wooden plow. I got photos of two
sets of them and wondered what my Dad would say if he saw that. Dad may have done something similar 85-90
years ago,
The last 15 kms was pothole heaven and very slow driving but
we got there thanks to Juan asking for directions in Spanish and navigating for
me while I skillfully avoided having his little Chevy swallowed in some monster
holes. I was actually shocked that we
arrived there so quickly and was so thrilled to see the beauty of the
layout. It was a $6 entry fee for
foreigners and $2 for locals. Here are
some videos of the place.
The site is the high spot of a large valley surrounded by
the Andes mountains and is the only elliptical
shaped temple made by the Incas.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here is what Wikipedia
has to say:
Ingapirca (Kichwa: Inkapirka, "Inca wall") is a
town in Cañar Province, Ecuador and the name of an Incan
archeological site just outside the town. The town was named after the Inca
palace and temple site.
These are the largest known Inca ruins in Ecuador. The
most significant building is the temple of the sun, an elliptically shaped
building constructed around a large rock. The building is constructed in the
Incan way without mortar in most of the complex. The stones were carefully
chiseled and fashioned to fit together perfectly. The temple of the sun was
positioned so that on the solstices, at exactly the right time of day, sunlight
would fall through the center of the doorway of the small chamber at the top of
the temple. Most of this chamber has fallen down.
The Incas were not the first inhabitants of Ingapirca. It
had long been settled by the Cañari indigenous people, who called it Hatun
Cañar.
The castle-complex presents a Inca-Cañari origin. The
objective of its construction is uncertain. The complex played an important
role on military strategies as a fortress and provisions to troops on north Ecuador. A
common criteria of archeologists states that the main objective for its
construction was linked to cult of sun.
It is said that the Inca Túpac Yupanqui during the
expansion's campaigns of the Inca-Empire trough south Ecuador, met the Cañari "Hatun Cañar"
tribe, battled them and then strategically married the Cañari princess Paccha,
giving on birth to the future Inca Huayna Capac in the city of Pumapungo
(nowadays Cuenca).
In this way, the Inca dominated the Cañari and they decided
to settle their differences and live together peacefully. The Canari people
built this complex for the Inca Huayna Capac. They renamed the city and kept
most of their individual customs separate. Although the Inca were more
numerous, they did not demand that the Cañari give up their autonomy.
At Incapirca they developed a complex underground aqueduct
system to provide water to the entire compound.
As a cult edification, people had numerous ritual
celebrations on the complex. Gallons of a local fermented drink were used in
these festivals. As sun and moon worshippers, they tried to be as close to their
gods as possible. The weather changes there are usually within minutes of each
other, calm and sunny one minute and within fifteen minutes rainy, windy and
cold. This climate volatility is typical year round. The people felt strongly
that this was the place where the gods had led them, regardless of the climate.
Wikimedia
Commons has media related to: Ingapirca
To visit Ingapirca, travelers can take a day tour up from
the city of Cuenca
or spend the night in the towns of El Tambo or Cañar.
~~~~~~~~~~
The front side has the ½ sun-shaped courtyard, the bases of
the former buildings, and remnants of the moon temple of the Canaris and the
sun temple of the Incas. They have a
huge rock sundial and a rock with 28 beveled holes representing the days of
each month, and they have another with 13 holes representing the 13 months in
their calendar. The extra day was their
big party day where they had drunken parties and sacrifices to the Gods.
The back side drops off like a cliff into a fertile
valley. Across this valley is a path
that leads to the “Inca face” on the side of a mountain. The features are incredible and plants
growing even look like eyebrows and eyelashes.
It is totally uncanny.
We were also dearly entertained by the antics of the llama
herd that has the run of the place. One
female seemed to be the object of attention for all the eligible males and one
dominant male was working hard to keep them at bay.
I took over 120 photos and 15 videos and they take a lot of
time to process so I apologize for the lateness of this offering.
Enjoy the videos and pics.
That was today’s excitement. Hugs
to all.
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| 120414 Cuenca church and palms |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca Face |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - east side |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - south side |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - west side |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - west side 2 |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - sun temple west side |
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| 120414 View from Ingapirca Inca ruins - west side
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - sun temple east side
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - north side
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| 120414 Ingapirca gaucho |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - east side
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - east side
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - grain storage area |
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| 120414 Ingapirca Inca ruins - sundial |
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| 120414 Myself outside of Ingapirca ruins |
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| 120414 Myself inside the ruins site |
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| 120414 Juan the Inca |
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| 120414 This looks like Gilligan and the Skipper, ya? |
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| 120414 Dual Inca faces |
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| 120414 I spent hours lining these guys up... |
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| 120414 He's ignoring us |
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| 120414 The Virgin on the mountain |
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| 120414 Single wooden plow with oxen 1 |
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| 120414 Single wooden plow with oxen 2 |
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| 120414 Statue on Avenida Solano |
