Tuesday 27 March 2012

I got up early today to try and walk to the Avenida Espana from which I could either walk to the Terminal Terrestre or get a bus there on the street, according to the guidebook. I found a parade de bus and waited too late for the first two buses to hail them down, having scanned their destinations too late.

As there are only two buses to Ingapirca (leaving at 9:00 am and 12:20 pm from the bus terminal, from my guidebook), I was starting to get worried when 8:30 came along as I didn't know how far away the terminal was, and I would still have to navigate it and find where to buy the ticket when another bus turned up that I determined to hail down and ask if it went to the bus terminal.

However, when I got on and asked, he said no, so I had to get back down and wait for either the next bus or a taxi. Of course, previously there had been plenty of taxis, now not one empty one passed by; however, another bus turned up and I repeated my performance, but this guy pointed ahead and to the left and said it was there. Turns out I was within 5 minutes' walk of the bus terminal from the bus stop!

Anyway, I made my way there and then spent several minutes wandering up and down trying to find Cañar, the bus company that goes directly to the Inca site ruins, whilst also passing through a village by the same name. I had to ask twice to get to the right office (located in the passageways near the exit gates, a different set up to what I have been used to), but then I found that there was no one there to serve me and despite shouting hola very loudly, didn't produce any result and it was now 8:45 am. It was only when I kept poking my head out of the office to try and see if I could get anyone that someone then obviously told the lady that she had a customer, so I managed to buy a ticket and the guy at the turnstile kindly pointed out in which direction the bus would be located.

The journey to Ingapirca took just over two hours, passing through a small town, Cañar, which is where I saw what appeared to my first self-service lavenderia. The bus also goes to the village Ingapirca before then making its way to the site entrance, where I paid my entrance fee, after asking what time the bus returned to Cuenca, as well as at what time the second and last bus left.

I made my way to the entrance and was asked if I wanted a guide, where I came from and whether I'd like a Spanish or English version (I leave it to you to guess: yes, the English; unfortunately my Spanish isn't good enough to understand everything). I had to wait for about 10 minutes, whilst others were supposed to gather - except they didn't, so the guide carried on with just me, especially as I wanted to get the first bus back and the others didn't as they were staying in Ingapirca, until they eventually caught up with us.

From the description in my guidebook, I wasn't too sure that the ruins would be a worthwhile excursion, so it was nice that it was better than I was expecting. The guide said that the ruins are actually both Cañari and Incan: the Cañari were resident in the area much longer than the Incas, who came later and destroyed the buildings, but only to the extent that they rebuilt on the same foundations. The Spanish never made it here, and there are ruins (Incan ruins on top of Cañari foundations) because the Incans had a civil war which destroyed everything except what is left.

Whilst there were similarities between the Cañari and the Incans, there were also differences; although they worshipped the same gods, the stress was different: the Cañaris worshipped the Moon, building a temple to worship it, they were a matriarchal society whilst the Incans worshipped the Sun. The ruins, therefore, had both a moon and a sun temple from the Cañari and Incan societies.

In the Moon temple, the Incans found a tomb (stones in a circle) under which there were 11 people, with a central elderly woman, surrounded by 10 women curled up into a foetal position, denoting the high status of the central woman, who is believed to be a high priestess. It's also thought that the 10 women were slaves who sacrificed themselves (really, or were made to - they´re slaves, after all?) when she died. There is a trumpet flower tree which is hallucinogenic. The flowers are cut, burnt and the fumes inhaled for 3 seconds, which apparently can make you very suggestible or fall asleep.

I asked him if it was similar to what I had seen in the Inti Ñan museum (north of Quito), where there was one indigena people who, if the head of the family (or important member) died, people were sent to sleep and buried alive to accompany the VIP: they were also found in foetal positions, so that they could be reborn in the afterlife - and he said it was. The foetal position is also one of the ways that the Cañari differed from the Incas: the Cañaris had their heads down to be reborn but the Incas had their heads up because they worshipped the Sun.

Anyway, the tomb was marked with a large stone which the Cañaris used as a marker only; the Incas left the tomb alone but used the tombstone as a way of tracking the sun's path, as the passage was in the East-West direction and using the (lack of) shadow cast by the tombstone, they could determine when it was noon. The Sun temple was therefore built in a straight line from the Moon temple. Both temples had separate bathing areas fed by aqueducts as it was important to be cleansed for their rituals, and there was an overlap of the two religions: with a semicircle (the Moon) passageway, on the outskirts of which were further rooms and storage areas which formed the rays of the Sun.

The archaeologists have found evidence of conch shell which they believe was used as currency and shows evidence of trade between the coast; also, that they ended up having alliances, living side-by-side, with the Cañari as they didn't totally destroy other circular structures built by the Cañari.

There were some large stones at the site, with holes, used for various purposes: one was used as palette to mix pigments for paintings, another for sharpening tools and the largest had 28 holes and is believed to be a moon calendar. This moon calendar was particularly important for deciding when the plant as they could determine when the first five days of the New Moon was, which was when women were most fertile but the opposite was true for the ground.

We were also shown the construction of the Sun Temple wall, of which there are two types, but I was busy taking photos and missed the explanationo of one of them! I got the most important one, which also relates to the meaning of Ingapirca, which means Inca´s wall. They carved each block separately and so carefully, that they fit perfectly together; putting two lighter ones then a heavier one on top. They fit so perfectly together that they look like a single wall, with carved pillow-shaped bricks, and are so stable that they are earthquake-proof, apparently. The guide said that even if you could extract one block (no two blocks are alike), that you would never be able to replace it back into the wall but would have to rebuild the entire wall. Even where they have tried to reconstruct part of the wall doesn´t have the same quality of wall-building as what the Incas achieved.

I also had just enough time to walk down a path to a natural formation that looks like an Inca's face, before heading back through the ruins to the museum, though I didn't have time to look around the museum, before being shepherded back to the bus, 10 minutes early by the bus driver.

Heading back through the streets of Cuenca, I passed through the Plaza Rotary, which had stalls selling ceramics, carved wood, such as kitchen implements, and baskets. I ended up having an early supper as I was pretty hungry as I had only eaten what I bought earlier: bread and crisps for breakfast on the bus, and a fruit salad bought from a vendor on the bus and which I had on the 2 ¼ hour return trip. (I find it fascinating, sometimes, what is sold on the street or on the buses, such as in Bahia, there was a guy with a photocopier on the pavement, selling copies - don´t know where he was plugged in for electricity - and in Guayaquil, there was a guy with a 2 or 3 litre bottle of Coca Cola (who is very big in Ecuador: they sell Dasani water here!) with plastic cups, presumbably selling by the cup, as well as a guy walking round, also in Guayaquil, selling bottles of vegetable oil, and I´m sure I saw one of the numerous cigarette-selling women in Quito selling one cigarette.)

The indigena women in Cuenca - and the nearby area (?), all part of the Canaria culture - wear very finely pleated velvet skirts in very deep colours (as velvets tend to be) with the bottom border possibly being embroidered, embroidered blouses, shawls (maybe) and a selection of hats, including the more usual ones I´ve seen, as well as a round hat with a small brim or a Panama hat.