Ingapirca, Cultura Inca y Cañari

Sample itinerary

• Tour hours
• 1

  Biblian

  The small town of Biblián is famous for one thing, its Neo-Gothic Sanctuary of the Virgen del Rocío. When a terrible drought struck the area in 1894, villagers carried the image of the Virgin Mary into the hills and prayed for her salvation. When the rains stopped, a church was built on the spot where the sanctuary had been created and was completed in 1908. It clings to the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pan-American Highway, and resembles a fairy tale castle. Be sure to visit the altar built into the rock.

• 2

  Cañari People

  The Cañaris were once the main indigenous group in all of southern Ecuador. When the Incas arrived in the 15th century, the Cañaris resisted fiercely, however they were later defeated and exiled again to Saraguro. When civil war broke out in 1527 between the two claimants to the Inca throne, Atahulapa in Quito and Huáscar in Cuzco, the Cañaris sided with Huáscar. In retribution, Atahualpa killed most of the men and boys of the Cañari tribe. The Cañaris then fought alongside the Spanish against the Inca forces in their conquest of Ecuador, but received little recognition from the Spanish for their help. There are currently around 40,000 Quichua-speaking indigenous peoples living in Cañar, the province with the highest number of indigenous people in Ecuador, most of whom are farmers or herders, and have their own traditional clothing, in addition to the felt hats.

• 3

  Ingapirca

  Located on top of a hill, with a beautiful view of the surroundings, Ingapirca is the most important Inca-Cañari complex in Ecuador. It was built during the Inca expansion into Ecuador at the end of the 15th century, on a site that had been occupied by the Cañari people for 500 years. The original Cañari structures were mostly destroyed and replaced by Incas, their settlement was probably used as a fortress and place of worship on the Inca trail between Cusco and Quito. Today, the Temple of the Sun is the only structure that remains almost intact. The temple features stone walls built in the way of the Inca, using huge chiseled blocks that fit together perfectly without the use of mortar.