Today we checked out of the Hotel Victoria and departed Cuenca to make our way towards Riobamba. On our way there we stopped at one of the most well-known Incan ruins in the area called Ingapurga. On the way we drove through an abundance of agricultural land that was managed by primarily indigenous people. It was interesting to hear from Diego that they still use the Incan calendar to base their agricultural practices and timing off of. Hey if its not broken don’t fix it I guess! This was one of the things that I enjoyed most from this trip, seeing people living the same lives their ancestors did thousands of years ago, it just gives you a whole new perspective on life and how our lives compared to theirs. When you see all this and you see people working their asses off to survive all the little problems that you stress back at home seem to be so insignificant and silly to even stress about because it is so insignificant to the grand scheme of life.
We continued on and arrived at Ingapurga. We spend about a little over an hour exploring the area and learning about the ways of life of the Canaris and the Incans who both inhabited the land. The Canaris inhabited first and then the Incans came in and took over. The main way that you can tell the difference between the Canaris and Incan structure is to look at the type of rock. The Canaris people used a dark grey river rock to build structures and the Incans used and orangish mountain rock. The Incan architectural design was very detail oriented and very precise. When building structures their goal was to not have to use any mortar so what the did was carve notches in each rock so that they fit together perfectly and create a wall surface with no gaps at all. Another interesting bit of Information that we learned was that the Canaris people worshiped the moon and believed that the moon was the god, however the Incans believed the exact opposite and believed that the sun was the god. Through this all of their building structures have some kind of purposeful alignment with the sun. Everything was built for a reason and the way in which they were built was designed for a reason and the reasons were so intricate and mind blowing to even think back to when they were building this and what the area may have looked like and what it must have been like to experience this ay of life and to think that I was standing on the same ground that most of these people in the colony were was a truly amazing thought. We then started to discuss the issues with the house that are built on the grassland slopes in the surrounding area. In areas like this many wealthy people build houses but then never actually go to them and a lot of the time they are built on these slopes and it is so risky because the soil underneath the house is not stable and has the potential to come loose due to weathering or human influence such as septic tanks that leech into the soil and make it less supportive until it hits the point where it gives way and that house is now done-zo for a long while. This also poses risks to houses in the surrounding areas of possible effected houses due to the domino effect.
After our tour of the ruins we had lunch at one of the local restaurants and got back on the bus to travel to Riobamba. Once we got to the hotel we did two presentations and had a mid-trip reflection of what we liked didn’t like and just general comments as well.
We continued on and arrived at Ingapurga. We spend about a little over an hour exploring the area and learning about the ways of life of the Canaris and the Incans who both inhabited the land. The Canaris inhabited first and then the Incans came in and took over. The main way that you can tell the difference between the Canaris and Incan structure is to look at the type of rock. The Canaris people used a dark grey river rock to build structures and the Incans used and orangish mountain rock. The Incan architectural design was very detail oriented and very precise. When building structures their goal was to not have to use any mortar so what the did was carve notches in each rock so that they fit together perfectly and create a wall surface with no gaps at all. Another interesting bit of Information that we learned was that the Canaris people worshiped the moon and believed that the moon was the god, however the Incans believed the exact opposite and believed that the sun was the god. Through this all of their building structures have some kind of purposeful alignment with the sun. Everything was built for a reason and the way in which they were built was designed for a reason and the reasons were so intricate and mind blowing to even think back to when they were building this and what the area may have looked like and what it must have been like to experience this ay of life and to think that I was standing on the same ground that most of these people in the colony were was a truly amazing thought. We then started to discuss the issues with the house that are built on the grassland slopes in the surrounding area. In areas like this many wealthy people build houses but then never actually go to them and a lot of the time they are built on these slopes and it is so risky because the soil underneath the house is not stable and has the potential to come loose due to weathering or human influence such as septic tanks that leech into the soil and make it less supportive until it hits the point where it gives way and that house is now done-zo for a long while. This also poses risks to houses in the surrounding areas of possible effected houses due to the domino effect.
After our tour of the ruins we had lunch at one of the local restaurants and got back on the bus to travel to Riobamba. Once we got to the hotel we did two presentations and had a mid-trip reflection of what we liked didn’t like and just general comments as well.