ñukaka inga pircamanmi rini

hey guys. new post. get excited!

last weekend i was in cuenca! cuenca is the third largest city in ecuador and it´s GORGOUS!! it´s known as the colonial capital of ecuador. all the buildings and churches (at least two on every block) are really old and really cool. it makes for a very surreal walk through the city. anyway, it´s about ten hours from quito by bus. and the bus ride was miserable. i couldn´t sleep, it was a night bus. anyway, some of our friends chose to fly, but that was $100, and it was only $20 to take the bus. so i did it the cheap way. and it wasn´t that bad. it was. hahaha!

so after the second day we went on a two hour bus ride to inga pirca!! the title of this post is ï´m going to inga pirca¨ in quichua. wow! sooooooooooooo amazing!! it´s the largest ruins in ecuador. it was originally made by the cañari people, but eventually taken over by the inca. the inca only had it for about 40 years before the spanish came. it was really cool. we saw all the sites of the cañari and learned about them from our guide, and then we saw the incan temple of the sun that they built when they took over. it´s an interesting temple of the sun, because it´s the only oval temple of the sun. the oval was a holy shape to the cañari, so the incans incorporated it into their temple to help assimilate the cañari to their culture. very cool. we also learned that the temple of the sun is the only original ruins. the rest of the ruins were reconstructed in the mid-60´s. kind of a let down, would have preferred if they hadn´t told us and just let us think they were original, but whatever...

also, while i was in cuenca, the second round of elections took place. and, unfortunately correa won. he´s the semi-communist. he has, however, said that now he doesn´t want to get rid of the dollar anymore, so that´s good for the economy here. but who knows what´s going to happen once he takes office mid-january. hopefully everything will turn out alright.


on an unrelated note, las fiestas de quito begin today!!! so for the next week there are crazy parties in the streets of quito to celebrate the founding of the city. entire streets are closed off for las fiestas and there are bull fights all week. i´m so excited to go!!

UNFORTUNATELY my quichua field trip got called off by our professor. it was supposed to be this week, the 1st-3rd of december. ON THE PLUS SIDE (!!!) i know will be in quito on the 2nd, which means I CAN STILL GO TO THE SHAKIRA CONCERT!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!