Howdy, I thought time for a little update. I haven’t been up to to much the last few weeks. Finally got the 4Runner registered and inspected. Glad that one is done with. This week I hope to get both the Yamaha and the Africa twin done also. It has been a pain in the butt.
Since the paper work on the motorcycles is almost done I have started planning on switching the sidecar over to the Africa Twin. It is going to be an interesting project but it will be cool when done. Biggest pain is to import the parts I need. Thank you JD for your much needed help.
So two weeks ago I took a ride to watch the sunrise. I just headed out with no real plans on where I was going. Ended up in the town of Cayambe and passed the equator on the way. What was really cool is while passing through the village of Oton I spotted a sign for the Pambamarca Ruins by accident. I had seen them on the map and had wanted to visit them before but did not know how to get there. I sent a picture of the sign to Daniela and she told me what I had found. A professor that she knows from the University helped the locals learn about what was in their backyard. So last weekend she had time to go and we headed out.
The Parmbamarca ruins is just part of a series of hilltop fortresses that was used by the Inca’s and maybe other indigenous people and date back to the 1300/1400’s. I visited Coshasqui earlier this year which is to the south but also part of the system of fortresses. Pucara is the Ecuadorian name for fortress.
In Oton you turn off the highway and travel for 12km to the ruins. This area of ruins consist of 6 hilltop Pucara’s. We did lose the path once and had to get directions in a small village. The road is mostly cobble and would be a nice pedal on bike. As we near the ruins we asked some local farmers where the trail was which they replied that were none they knew of. Just start walking across the pastures. The elevation was around 4000 meters (13,100 feet) give or take a little. The weather was perfect and the hike was easy so we visited 4 Pucara’s. We never did see the exact ruins that Daniela was looking for but I will go back and check out the other Pucara’s soon. They best thing for me was no other people doing what we were doing. I love off the beaten path stuff.
The reason we cut the hike short is that I wanted to visit Cayambe Volcano before the day was out. So off we went and our timing was perfect for it had started to lightly rain just as we were leaving.
Very interesting place and I plan on returning soon since it is less than 3 hours from the house.