2760m
Breakfast was early this morning, too early. I don’t mean for us; 7am was fine, but not for the hotel staff. It was supposed to start at 6:30, we arrived at 6:45 and there were no staff present and just some bread rolls and chocolate croissants. Now I’m not adverse to a chocolate croissant, but I do like a coffee to go with it. No luck. Around 7am some bacon and a form of eggs arrived, and 10 minutes later we were served coffee. No sign of the VP either. Might be a correlation there.
We were picked up by Javier, our guide, at 8am and then had to have a game of Tetris to get the luggage sorted out. Not a huge car and he had 2 large backpacks as he had finished a tour in Cuenca and of course there was Fran’s Panama Hat box to fit as well. This done we headed off to El Tambo (resting place in Kichwan) to see an Incan bath. We drove along the Pan American Highway for a large part of the way and then turned off onto a small dirt track which led around houses and up into the hills.
The Inca Bath was carved out of an existing rock with a throne carved for the Inca (ruler, not people) to survey the local populace. He would have been bathed twice, once in water to physically clean him and once with smoke from herbs and incense to spiritually cleanse him. After the ‘double dip’ he would be coated in oil and gold dust, showing he was the demigod of the sun. Punishments were also held here, in public, for cheats, liars and for other crimes. They would have been stripped and tied to poles (the holes are still there) and then flogged. It was all very interestingly explained by a local guide as well as Javier who would keep translating for us. I did manage to understand a large proportion of the Spanish, as the guide spoke slowly and clearly. We were moved to an indigenous garden and went through the connotations of the spiral set up as well as the Andean cross, with the main cardinal point being east for the sun, south for earth, west for the moon and north for air.
For our afternoon visit we ‘dropped in’ on a local family who grow quinoa (as well as other things) and we were allowed to participate in the greeting ceremony to give thanks to the ancestors and spirits for the harvest. This involved a long conversation to the spirits, including kowtowing to the floor with her ‘third eye’ (the one that can see the future) and then we got to introduce ourselves to a fire, make obeisance to east, south, west and north and then through our offering into the fire with our right hand, so it would be accepted.
The ceremony over, she showed us how they harvest and then process the quinoa. A sickle is used to cut the stalks and then these are rolled through the palms to release the seeds. It is then separated from the little chaff which is present and then washed, dried, repeated and then can be processed into flour or used in cooking. She would make about $700 from a decent crop and as it takes 9 months to grow, there is only one harvest each year. We were served a bowl of cooked quinoa with chicken and peas which was certainly palatable, and then we could wash it down with chicha, a local beer normally made from corn, but in this case was made from quinoa and barley, with a little cane sugar thrown in. This was a fresh batch and hadn’t been allowed to ferment yet. With big hugs from her, and her asking us to visit again we set off to Riobamba (river valley).
Now, Riobamba is not my favourite town we have been through and is certainly not on the main tourist attraction list. The hotel was quaint and comfortable enough, but a number of items were not on available from the menu, and the dining room felt like a funeral parlour given its lack of ambience.