Boodle's Adventure: Ecuador’s Machu Picchu

After exhausting the to do’s of Cuenca, which has earned itself the title of Ecuador’s most beautiful city, – wandering the flower market, visiting the odd church, and walking down river bank we thought we’d up the anti and get some cultural experience as well by visiting Ingapirca – apparently ‘Ecuador’s Machu Picchu.’ We liked the ring of that.

The thing was, that for 3 hours of travel, the bus having stopped to pick up everyone on the side of the road, our bus driver only gave us 45 minutes to explore. We could have stayed longer, but that would have meant navigating several buses in darkness to get home. To be honest, the site wasn’t so impressive that I felt it was worth missing our bus and struggling to get home. We should have got the hint that it wasn’t going to be anything special when there were only 2 other gringos on the bus trekking out there.

The site does not even come close to be being half as impressive as Machu Picchu. Being not even a twelfth of the size, and with only one building still standing, you kind of feel sorry for Ecuador that this is all that is left for them of the Inca empire when Peru has Machu Picchu.

Our Spanish guide raced us around pointing out important rocks which remain (some which made up a calendar) and a mountain opposite that resembles a turtle (? – this may just be my crappy Spanish totally missing the point here, but that’s what it sounded like) and then we had to go.

The calendar rocks

I must admit, the scenery was beautiful - Perched high up on a hill the site has a 360 degree view of the surrounding valley for miles. The calendar rock was interesting, but what got most of our attention was the llama orgy that was going on. A group of about 10 males were fighting over one female. They head bunted and tackled each other, legs were entangled everywhere, while she sat peacefully in the middle of all the action. The Americans found it so amusing they filmed the whole thing on their camera, instead of filming the site.

It’s probably one of those things that if I hadn’t done it, I always would have wondered what it was like. For the record though, it is no Machu Picchu, but this may just be my Inca ignorance.

Other Cuenca happenings:

The worst thing that happened? Claire spotting bugs on her bed. I looked closer at mine, and there they were. Tiny little creatures. Gross. We changed rooms.

The best thing we ate: vindaloo curry para mi and marinara pasta for Claire at Cafe Eucalyptus. The chef was awesome – I’m probably just saying that because he came out to talk to us and that has never happened to me when I haven’t had the parentals around. Felt muy especial, hahaha. No, the food really was spectacular. He was a really nice English guy. My only complaint – the curry could have been a tad hotter. Yum, yum, yum.

The worst thing we ate: Mexican food at a restaurant in both our guide books that was apparently the ‘best’ Mexican food in Ecuador. I would hate to taste the worst. My stuffed pepper was covered in sour cream, so that all that was on my plate was a giant white turd, sprinkled with Garana. The meat was still cold. Claire’s burrito was 2 cans of kidney bean slush wrapped tightly in burrito. Sin veggies. Sin queso. Deeply disappointing considering how hungry we were at the time.