The craft market

Calla Lillies at the flower market

Diane and Katie overlooking Cuenca

Luis playing the bass pan pipes

Carvallo Hotel

Ingaprica

Ingapirca sun temple

Mmmmm, torched pigskin!

I taste like Ecuadorian fast food!

Woman weaving a panama hat

Church of the Virgin of the Morning Dew

We took the bus up the Andes on the Pan-American Highway and stopped at a church that was literally built into the moutain.  It was the Church of the Virgin of the Morning Dew and behind the altar you can see the rock of the mountain.  Our next stop was a visit to a panama hat weaver.  She showed us how she weaves natural grass into panama hats.  I was impressed with her patience; it takes an entire day to weave one hat!  Up the road a little ways, we stopped at an Ecuadorian fast food restaurant where they were using a blowtorch to fry pigskin.  It is a very interesting process because they slaughter the pig, but just cook the skin the first day and the rest of the pig stays raw.  They scrap the hair and char off of the skin and then slice it off as people order.  It is served with salsa and mote, steamed corn.  It was crunchy and flavorful, but you feel a little bad looking at the poor piggy. 

We made it to Ingapirca after crossing the continental divide and highest point on the Pan-American highway.  Ingapirca is an Incan town that was built over the same place that the ancient Cañari people had a town.  It was excavated in 1967 after being buried for 400 years.  The city was built in the shape of a puma.  There were many spots where the sun would shine on certain days of the year.  In the temple, there were cutouts for each of the four seasons.  I was amazed by their city planning.  This spot has the only oval shaped building in all of Inca architecture and the city was second in size only to Cusco in Peru.  Amazing.