Trek to Ingapirca: 4 - One last muddy slog

Day 3 dawned wet and more uncomfortable than ever, so that we got a relatively quick start to shake off the chills. Alas, not one of the days provided a sunrise worth taking a picture of and only on the very first day did we see something akin to a sunset.



Raz making a run for it - along one of the stretches where the Ingañan wasn't yet well defined.



Low clouds, wet terrain but good speed, because the ground hadn't been turned into the Somme battlefields by herds of cattle or riders.



That's where we met civilization again, unfortunately for us only in the form of muddy paths that we had to take and where you could sink in to mid-thigh if you weren't careful.



Campesinos taking the paths every day with their livestock had turned the paths into quagmires. Thing is, in this part of the world the old welly (aka rubber boot) is the greatest thing since sliced bread.



I've made my point, you say?



Ioana and Ricardo - the man wasn't the sharpes tool in the shed but full of surprises, starting to read my english-language trekking guidebook whilst slip-sliding along the muddy road. All the more suprising since he had limited his vocab so far to (in order of decreasing frequency):
* "burro" (more like a cough)
* "¿manda?" (= I beg your pardon)
* "¡Que dios les page!" (instead of saying yes... always)



Sight most often seen during the latter part of the trek - burro's bum.



I'm beating the point to death, aren't I?



Finally standing above Ingapirca after 3 hours of downhill mudslide



We did go in to see the site - after much pleading (with hungry co-trekkers) and haggling (with ticket vendors) ;-) - and it was worth the time and money spent!



Lamas grazed next to the Inca stairs. The site was originally built by the Cañari culture and then taken over by Incas around 1500, to be abandoned only 30 years later!



Conquered!



More conquerors!



Bloody posers :-)



Something more akin to natural poses on top of the temple, looking back toward the path we had taken to come down.



The typical (roughly) trapezoidal doorways. the stonework was shoddy in parts, but excellent in other places, and we had the sneaking suspicion that the better parts were originals and the not-so-good ones inept patch-ups.

I was just too tired and we were in too much of a hurry to get to our respective destinations at the end to really spend more time on an "end of the trek" picture. I'm kind of regretting that now...