Day 4: See The Inca Face

Still no news from the tour agent when I woke up. So, the backup plan it is. I would go to the Inca ruins by bus myself. The weather did not look promising, it was cloudy and very foggy above the mountains. I left the apartment just a little before 8am, trying to get some pastry before I went to the bus terminal. There was a bakery at the corner of my street, their advertised 8am open hour was not exactly accurate. I waited a little bit but they were still stocking up. So, I gave up and took a taxi to the bus station since I did not want to be late for the bus. I thought I would get the ticket first and then try to get something to eat on the bus. It took a while to figure out what was going inside the terminal, there were so many ticket windows, many were from the same company, so I just asked one of the guys standing in front of the windows: "a Ingapirca, aqui?" He said No, I needed to find "Cañar". Ah! The different windows were for the different regions. It made senses. Found it! I successfully purchased my ticket, the lady just asked me to wait, before I knew it, we needed to board already. So, I did not get to get any foods, boo whoo... I only had two apples and some biscuit in my bag. The lady instructed us to go to the bus, looking number 11, I went right through the gate, someone called me back, before we could get to the platform, we needed to pay another 10 cents like a departure fee, very Mafia style, you have to pay extra before you could get to board the bus. There were a luggage scanner too, but that machine was not used.

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.

Day 3: Guapo Cuenca!

Woke up at 5:30am so I could make it downstairs to meet Darwin, he took me the airport. On the way, he kind tried to talk to me, more like he was talking to a kid who was just learning to speak, mostly in single word with hand gesture conversion, brumso (foggy), claro (clear), Choque (crash) - there were an pole fallen on the highway. I also told him again all those places where I will go in this trip. He kind of corrected my pronunciation along the way, but he lost me whenever he said anything more than a few words. Too bad, I wished I speak a little more Spanish, I really like to talk a few people here. But that is the dilemma, because I don't speak the language, so I completely rely on my senses and I can observe what is happening around without the judgement from interpretation of a language. That makes it kind of unique. Anywoo, I just doesn't have that language skill anyway, I can repeat things at that very second, but I cannot remember them and I mix up all languages I know very easily. We got to the airport, of course, I had that silly incident that I was mistaken and give Darwin (my taxi driver) a hug, while he just wanted to put his hands up to his ear signaling I should call him if I shall need a ride when I come back to Quito. Extremely embarrassing, but nobody was watching. It did not happen!

The flight to Cuenca took an hour and 10 mins, it was a tiny tiny plane. They had to check my backpack because it was too big for the overhead bin. That actually never happened before, even with Porter, that small a plane, it fit. But I'd do what they say, I was in no rush. The flight was pretty pleasant, I was on the last row, actually we boarded and left the plane in the back, so it worked perfectly, I was the first one to get out of the plane. When we landed, we had light rain. But as the day went on, the weather got better. I took a taxi to my airbnb, the host was already waiting for me downstairs. He showed me the apartment. It really is a lovely place. For US$30 per night, it is kind of unbelievable, it is right in the center, I am steps away from everything.

First thing first, I stopped by the tourist information to get a map and asked about my bus to Alausi (my next destination) for Tuesday morning, I wonder if I need to get the ticket ahead. She did not think so, and said I could just go to the station Tuesday morning to buy it, I should be able to find a ticket pretty easily, since all buses going to Quito will stop by Alausi, there are bus every hour, she said. People seemed to be a lot more laid back than Quito, maybe because it is Sunday, a lot of businesses are closed, even travel agencies. It is a very Catholic country here. The lady at the tourist information gave me the phone number of a tour guide I could call and try to get on a tour for tomorrow, I was thinking of doing a hiking day tour at the El Cajas National Park, if possible. I have left 3 messages on his phone, it went straight to voice message. We will see if I have the luck to make it to El Cajas this time, it is all in his hand. I told him he can call me tonight or early tomorrow morning, although it does not look promising. Anyhow, as I was reading the tourist guide I got from tourist information, it mentioned about Ingapirca Ruins (about 80 km northwest of Cuenca), perhaps that will be my backup plan. But going to that ruin, I will have to go to the bus station to find a specific bus to go and to come back. They only have two scheduled times a day, so I better not miss it if I do that! Alternatively, I can just take a day off and enjoy the laid back mood of this town.

Most of the tourist attractions in Cuenca are very concentrated near where I am staying, I pretty much have walked everywhere today. I even took a taxi to a cutsy church on a small hill, Mirador de Turi, it overlooked Cuenca, with a beautiful beautiful view. It was one of my highlights of the day. I have to appraise the taxi here in Ecaudor, they all use meter automatically, you don't even need to ask or worry that they scam you. It surely does not happen in the neighboring Peru.

For lunch, I had American BBQ actually, it did seem to me there are lots of American influence here in Cuenca, I bet this BBQ place was opened by a retiree from the US South. I had a pink lemonade, like it was made from real lemon and lemon only. For dinner, I had dinner Ecuadorian food in a restaurant Simón 7-84, I had Lorco de Papas, a soup made with potato, cheese and avocado, kind of interesting but very filling. And then a plate of El Cajas caught rainbow trout with rice, some salad and deep fried corn or plantain, I couldn't quite tell. I also ordered a lemonade which was even more lemony than the first one. I should not order lemonade here again.

Here are some of the street arts I bumped into today:

See all Day 3 photos here.