Ingapirca

About two hours north of Cuenca is a city called Cañar. Just outside of this town are the best-preserved Inca ruins in all of Ecuador. There used to be a grand castle, fortress and temple here. The Spanish knocked it all down because they thought there was gold hidden in the walls. Holland actually has the Inca crown. Why they don't return it back to the country where it was stolen from is beyond me. It's like England and their crown jewels being stolen from India.

Anyways, the complex is shaped like a puma. The puma was one of the Incas secondary gods. The sun temple was placed at the brain of the animal. When the Incas conquered this part of Ecuador, there was already a tribe living here called the Cañari. They had temples and buildings here as well, but the Incas knocked them down and rebuilt it in their own style. Anything circular or eliptical seen is from the Cañari, and anything rectangular is Incan.

When looking at these photos, you have to remember that these ruins used to be walls and buildings with roofs and doors and windows. The circular containers below were used to hold, store and dry out grains.

This part of the complex housed the ceremonial baths. There were aqueducts running throughout this place and the priests or whoever would enter the temple would cleanse themselves before entering the temple. The smaller half-circle was gardens and the bigger one outside of it was various agricultural crops.

The Incas would use the magnolia flowers and cups and drink their drinks and drugs out of it. They would make a fermented corn drink called Chinchi which is still made and sold here today. 

Me with the Incan ruins!

This stone is a calendar. The Incas were master astronomers and had the same 365 day calendar that we have. The stone would have been in a building with a special opening in the roof that let moonlight in. All of the holes would be filled with water. Wherever the light reflected, that's how they knew which day of the year it was.

Most of the builidings at this site are reproductions so that tourists can get a glimpse of what it might have been like back then. However, this wall is the original structure. It wasn't knocked down. The Incas would cut, sand and polish the stones into the shape they wanted and arrange them in such a way that no mortar was ever needed. Look at how tight the joints are in the second picture. It's amazing to think of all the things they knew back then.











It's easy to see why the Cañari and the Incas chose this site as a fortress. It's at the top of a mountain, 3160m above sea level and you can see anyone coming from miles away. It's just gorgeous countryside now.

Part of the actual Inca Highway is still intact and preserved here. It led straight to the sun temple. It's at the end of the video below.

The re-creation of the sun temple obviously looks nothing like that wall above, but the archeologists did the best they could with the materials available. A lot of the original stones were taken by local people to build their houses and especially to build the churches. The guide told us that the government is trying to buy the 500 acres surrounding this place because the gold from this temple was never found. Legend has it that when the Inca Atahualpa was imprisoned by the Spanish, he sent word throughout the kingdom to hide everything because he knew they were going to kill him. There is also the very real possibility that there are more ruins to uncover. All of this was underground until they started digging in 1966. 

In this photo and video, you can see a doorway and two niches in the wall. The original wall had four niches, one for each of the important celebratory days in the Inca calendar year. The roof and/or door of this temple was designed in such a way that the light would shine into these niches only on the solstices and equinoxes of each year. Each niche has a gold statue of a god. When the priest saw the light on the god, they knew it was time to party!

There was also two entrances and exits to the temple and it was a mirror image. So on the other side of the wall is the same layout. This was so that they could do worship as the sun was rising and setting. The guards would stand at the door and communicate with whoever was inside by the echoes of the walls!

When the Inca himself (Inca was the name of the king) would come to visit this palace, he would stay in this room. Outside of this room was quite literally rooms full of the best and most beautiful women of the land wanting to be his wife. His name was Inca Huayna Capac, which literally means unlimited women. He had thousands of wives across his kingdom. But before they could become his wife, they had to go to school to learn the Inca history and customs. He didn't want no scrub.

This is where the guided tour ended and the self-guided tour began. The Incas also made interesting rock carvings around the temple/fortress site. 

They had carvings of turtles and in the side of the mountain is an image of the Inca himself! Enjoy the pics below. Tonight, I take a 7 hour bus at 10:30 into Peru. At least they have seats which fully recline into beds. Hasta luego!