We took a day trip from Cuenca through beautiful countryside to Ingapirca, a town in Cañar Province, Ecuador which is named after an Inca archeological site just outside the town. Ingapirca means Inca Wall. These are the largest known Inca ruins in Ecuador.
At Ingapirca they developed a complex underground aqueduct system to provide water to the entire compound.
The stonework is beautiful – the green color is natural.
The Incas were not the first inhabitants of Ingapirca. It had long been settled by the Cañari indigenous people, who called it Hatun Cañar.
The most significant building is the Temple of the Sun, an elliptically shaped building constructed around a large rock. They worshipped both the sun and the moon.
The buildings are constructed in the Inca way without mortar in most of the complex. The stones were carefully chiseled and fashioned to fit together perfectly.
The Temple of the Sun was positioned so that on the solstices, at exactly the right time of day, sunlight would fall through the center of the doorway of the small chamber at the top of the temple. Most of this chamber has fallen down.
Homes and farms in the surrounding rugged countryside were accessible by footpath only.
The Inca Man in the rock
The weather changes there are usually within minutes of each other, calm and sunny one minute and rainy, windy, and cold another minute. The scenery was stunningly beautiful.
Another little cutie!