Ingapirca Ruins

Llamas grazing, ruins in background

A llama family

That flower that has hallucinagenic properties.  We did not indulge.

Bobby, Dayana, and llamas

Terri and llama

The Canari end, with replica house on left

Inside the house.  Our guide took this picture for us.

Dayana at the kitchen corner of the house with mortar and pestle for grinding corn.

Apparently some Canari priestess is buried here along with her slaves, who were buried alive.  I think that was rude!

You Know Who

Going from the Canari part to the Incan part

Foundations of some houses

If you lived back then, the skinny rectangle in the center is where you would bathe to purify yourself before getting closer to the temple, but you and I wouldn't have been allowed into the temple---only the head honcho guy.

Women's work is never done.  Another mortar and pestle!

Dayana acting sassy

Oops!  I rotated this one, but it un-rotated itself.  Turn your head sideways---it's either a way of calculating constellation movement or it's a lunar calendar.  It has 28 holes (that get filled with water to see the reflection of the moon or something), so I vote for the lunar calendar.

Bobby about to get decapitated at the sacrifice stone.  Yikes!  Good thing he's not a vestal virgin!

The pointy structure is the sun temple, I think---but we had to leave before we got to that part of the tour.

Surrounding countryside.  They don't skimp on beauty here.

At the Incan part.  The wall goes around.

These were stones that were apparently prepared for another building project before the Incans got out of Dodge.

Bobby looking like a tourist.

Notice the greenish cast to the stone----that's the natural color.

This is classic Incan construction---the stones cut so that they fit together perfectly with nothing in between to  fill in any chinks.  Pretty cool, huh?

That tourist again

Up near the sun temple part

The 3 of us. We got pretty close, even though none of us is a  head honcho.  We did bathe that morning, however.

Cool stairs going from upper to lower level.  As stairs do.

City in background, several members of the tour group inside a housing structure.

Although this is the Incan part, the wall is curvy, so maybe I'm all wet about the difference between Canari and Incan structures.