Ingapirca, Cajas National Park

So yesterday, Eva Maria and I headed up to the Inca ruins two hours north of Cuenca. The ruins are called Ingapirca (Incan wall, yay my mad Quichua skills). The original walls were built by the Cañari culture in 900 AD. Then the Incas invaded in 1470 and brought with them astrology, technology, all kinds of fun stuff. They built a temple in the shape of an oval, because they knew that the orbits of the planets in space was ellipitical, not circular. And they were the only Amerindian culture that knew about this. In the temple, the niches are perfectly aligned so that during the soltices only the two middle niches are illuminated by the sun. During the equinoxes, only the far niches are illuminated. They also had this amazing rock calendar. They would drill holes in the rocks, fill the holes with water, and use the little puddles like mirrors to watch the night sky. But the moon and the stars, obviously, would move from puddle to puddle throughout the night and throughout the year. In this way, they were incredibly advanced in astrology. We also saw these crazy doors that had more space at top and less around the legs. The guide told us this was because of the huge headdresses that the Incans wore into the ceremonies. The whole little town was built in the shape of a puma. From above, like from an airplane, it still looks like a giant rock puma, even though most of the walls are gone, because the stupid Spaniards stole a lot of the rocks to build houses and roads. Only 2 percent of the original rocks remain.

We also learned about how the llama was sacred to the Incas. Even though they ate llama, they never used them for transport. They never rode them. That is hardcore considering the alternative was carrying all of their cargo on their backs, which they did. The Incas also did not value gold that much. When they came across the Cañari, who traded with coastal people, they were obsessed with seashells because they had never seen them before and had never been to the ocean. Therefore, a lot of Incan gold ended up on the coast, traded for seashells! When the Spaniards came, they destroyed most of the Sun Temple looking for gold... to bad they didn´t want seashells!

Today, we headed out to Cajas National Park. The trails there, like everywhere in Ecuador, were horrible and poorly marked. We ran into an Austrian guy and his Hungarian mother, and the four of us got horribly lost in this crazy forest that looked like it came from China. The trees are the highest elevation trees in the world, all knarled and crazy looking. It looked like we were in that Fire Swamp forest from The Princess Bride. We were also at a very high elevation, and Eva and I both got altitude sickness very badly. After most of the day, we found the original trail to an overlook that we wanted. We almost made it to the top, but the fog was rolling in, and we did not want to get stranded. They say not to even go to that park without a guide, but after my time in Baños, I knew a guide would cost 35 bucks, and we couldn´t pay that! So we got almost to the summit. The view was amazing. This part of Ecuador has over 232 lakes, and it is this unreal paramo landscape in the middle of nowhere. The quiet is amazing. It is freezing cold. And the altitude was 4200 meters!! That´s really really high.

So we just barely caught a random bus on the mountain highway and made it back to Cuenca. Both Eva and I had plopped our hands down in a poisonous-ish plant that made us break out all over our hands and made our hands swell and sting. We were all horribly dirty. Eva twisted her ankle. I fell and landed on a spiny plant that managed to squish a huge splinter under my nail, which began to bleed everywhere. And everyone was getting altitude sickness. So it was a very very long day, even though the experience was worth it. Now I am going back to take a hot shower and to rest before we head to Loja tomorrow. Eva and I are both still suffering horrible altitude headaches and this computer screen doesn´t help.

I´ll be in touch when I am cleaner and healthier!!! Love from Incan ruins and ridiculously high altitude Andean lakes.