Ecuador y más allá: Karanki and the Incas

Today I went to an archeology site in the city of Karanki. It was not exactly what I was expecting but I really enjoyed seeing everything. For some reason I had a Jurassic Park image in my head where we'd see bones and then the old Machu Picchu idea of complete standing buildings. The reality was way different. The site was dug up by [not so talented] archeologist who destroyed half of it and left the rocks laying in rows at one corner. Thankfully, they kept some parts in tact so we were able to envision what it once looked like. There were many canals that brought water throughout the site. The best part was a huge pool [most likely a pool] that had a perfect stone bottom and walls. The second theory of what the pool was is that it acted as a mirror so the Incas could monitor the stars and skies. It was so amazing to see how they carved stone to make pipes and how they fit each piece of rock together to make it water tight. The bottom layer of rocks in the pool were triangular and then there was a top layer of polygonal rocks. It all worked together to form a barrier so the water would stay in the pool.

Our guide for the tour [of course] only spoke in Spanish and spoke very quickly. I did completely catch his racist rant though. At one time, a fellow classmate asked who worked on the site to uncover it and our guides first words were "No soy racistso...pero," that means "I'm not racist but." From then on he told us that there were two Afro-Ecuadorians that worked with the mestizo Ecuadorians during the excavation and that the races can't mix. He said "the blacks" [not my wording, sorry] don't like to work for long, they were late and always wanted to work less than the mestizo Ecuadorians. Needless to say, there was a huge awkward silence over our crowd. After we left the site, everyone was in shock and had to make sure that we heard him correctly. WE DID! I knew there was still a lot of race prejudices in Ecuador but I wasn't expecting a lecture about it while at an archaeology site.

We stopped in Otavalo for lunch [I'll be there tomorrow for shopping] and we got a glimpse of the market. There is so much to see and buy [I might go broke]. There is alpaca EVERYTHING! You can get alpaca scarves, sweaters, shirts, purses, etc. I am going to have to keep a straight face and work on my bargaining skills. I can't wait to get my hands on some jewelry either; they have a bunch of necklaces made out of stones and coral for... 15 dollars. That is the gringo price too so I will try to talk them down to $10. Wish me luck :)