Ingapirca

Our next stop was the ruin site of Ingapirca at 10,350 ft. Originally this was a sacred site of the Canari, where they would make observations for their lunar calendar. They build elliptical shaped structures for housing and circular ones for storing food stuffs. There is a plaza or meeting area for their equivalent of a sun dial. Beneath is a burial pit where 11 bodies were found in fetal positions with jewelry and precious personal items as the Canari believed in reincarnation so that this wealth and possesions would be needed in the next life. You may easily identify the walls build by the Canari as they were piled stones with mud in between. The Inca took over this site and made it into a military outpost with barracks but also a palace for one of the chiefs with accommodations for shamans and virgins as well as a Temple of the Sun. The construction of the Incas is distinct in that each stone fits perfectly with no need for mortar or mud to fill in the gaps as there are no gaps. You could not put a credit card in between two stones they fit together so tightly. The site include the Inca road, a paved path built by the Incas from Columbia through Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina. The Inca road from Cuenca to Cuzco is 2000 kilometers with tambo or rest stations every 28 kilometers. Runners or messengers would travel for several tambo before handing the message over to the next runner who would travel the next several tambo, so on and so forth until the message reached its destination.