Got on the bus, there were only a few other tourists or backpackers. There were lots of empty seats, or so I thought. Turned out, as we took off, we kept picking up local folks on the side walk, kind of an interesting concept. They paid 25 cents to go wherever they wanted along the bus route. They could get off anywhere really, practically the side of a tiny road next to a hillside, I was not sure how far they had to walk home from there. It was like a small fee paid hitchhike in a way. As we went further into the countryside, a lot of old women boarded were wearing their traditional dresses and panama hats. The bus got really crowded, some people needed to stand. It was very foggy and rainy as we cruised along the country roads. I was thinking at the time, oh well, it was really out of my control, I just have to accept that, worst case I could still visit the museum. Lucky enough, when we were approaching Ingapirca, it started to clear up a bit, so mostly cloudy, at least it was not raining and not foggy at the site. I would gladly take that.
Most of the folks visiting Ingapirca today spoke Spanish so they had a Spanish guide. Only myself, a couple (I believe) from Quebec or France, an Mexican and an American girl were with the English tour guide. The guided walk lasted about 30 mins or so, he gave us a lot of background information. The interesting part of this site was that before Inca took over, it was originally a religious site for Cañari. Cañari was moon worshiper, while Inca was sun worshiper. The ruins present a fusion of the Cañari and Inca architecture. There is a moon temple as well as a sun temple. This is an example when two civilizations living peacefully together, and not forcing one to convert to the other or just eradicate the others, and they worked beautifully. Though the Cañari were outnumbered, but the Inca did not force them to change their belief. The Inca stone work was amazing. The guide told us that they actually still used this site for religious ceremony, there is one coming up in June. After the guided tour, we were recommended to take a walk through some local villages ourselves where we would see the face of Inca on the cliff. That was a real treat! There were a few other small stone works along the path, Intiñawi or “Face of the Sun” was haunting. I thought I have seen enough Inca temple in Peru, I had spent 5 weeks in the Sacred Village back in 2009. However, I am still amazed looking at this stone structure today. It is kind of amusing but also scary at the same time, to see all these strength and intelligent the Inca civilization shown in their ruins, but they went kaboom just like that.
The return bus ride was a lot of longer. It seemed to be the case, the traffic got so bad in the afternoon. It is a Monday, kids are back to school. There were many kids hop on and off of the bus in the afternoon, they did not seem to need to pay. The bus money guy often asked them to give up seats for the other folks who paid. Maybe that's how it worked. I was daydreaming a bit, what if I was a bus money collecting boy, I tried not to fall asleep at the same time. Got back to Cuenca at 4:30pm, and I still had no have lunch yet. Only had my apple, a few biscuits and a bag of queso chips. So, I went to have a lunch/dinner at 5pm.
Before I left the bus terminal, I also checked about my bus for tomorrow. Alausi will be my next destination which is about 4 hours north of Cuenca, that is where I will take the Devil's Nose Train on Wednesday morning. But Alausi and next town I will stay on Wednesday, Guamote, both are so small and remote, the bus actually do not go into those towns, but they will let me out on the side of the Pan-American Highway, and I will have to walk into town myself. Oh my goodness, that will be experience for sure. They told me it is only a very short distance, I better study the freaking map tonight, I don't want to get eaten by a hunger llama on the highway.
See all Day 4 photos here.
