Machu Picchu

Ruins, Ruins and More Ruins

Just outside of Cusco, Peru lies the Sacred Valley, which
was the traditional homeland of the Inca Empire. I
definitely got my inner archaeology geek on as we
visited eight different ruins, all different from each
other in form and function.


Sacsayhuamán - Located just above Cusco, it served as
a fortress, with some stones weighing over 70 tons!


Q'enqo - Servied as a sacred sanctuary to fertility


Q'enqo


Puka Pukara - Used as a road control, administrative center, military
headquarters and food warehouse


Puka Pukara


Tambomachay - A resort for Inca royalty that included baths


Tambomachay


Chinchero - A farming center with large terraces


Moray - a huge number of circular concentric farming terraces, each
with it's own microclimate!


Moray


Ollantaytambo - An example of Pre-Columbian urban planning, is
one of the few places the Incas defeated the Spanish Conquistadors


Ollantaytamo


Pisac - A huge amount of farming terraces. We took a several
hour long hike through these ruins that kicked our butts at
over 11,000 feet in elevation.


Pisac


Pisac

Scenes from Cuenca

Visiting Cuenca filled several days of sightseeing.


It's quite a large city, with over 400,000 inhabitants.


Another view of the New Cathedral


Flowers, especially roses, are plentiful in Ecuador.
Two dozen roses can often be purchased for $1.


This group of college students interviewed us while we were
sitting in the park one day. They were in an English language
class and their assignment was to interview travelers in English.


Supermarkets are still relatively new here and the average
person shops at local markets like this one.


All kinds of fruits and vegetables can be found. Some
familiar, some not so much.


You can eat at the market too, but our brains were smarter
than our stomachs on this day. There's a saying amongst
expatriates in Ecuador that if you don't get sick once a week,
you must not be eating.


There is lots of European style architecture and many
cobbled streets in the city and you'll see locals in
traditional dress as often as more modern styles.


This must be where old wheeled carts (dollies) go to die.
There were just as many on the opposite wall behind me
and hardly any of them were identical in design!


One day, there was a health fair taking place outside the
New Cathedral. Not much doubt what this person thinks
of smoking.


At the Museo Banco Central there are Incan ruins and these
interesting gardens dating from the Incan settlement of the
area.


This copy of a famous Incan mask found in the area is
located on the outside of the Museo Banco Central. We
found the most interesting part of the museum though
to be it's collection of Ecuadoran money from the last
500 years.

Ingapirca

We took a bus two hours north of Cuenca, to the ruins of Ingapirca.
Ingapirca is the largest set of Incan ruins in Ecuador. The biggest
building at the site is the Temple of The Sun, and is built in an
elliptical shape without any mortar. It was positioned so that on
the solstices, the sunlight would fall through the center doorway.