{"id":3653,"date":"2016-06-20T19:47:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T19:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/?p=3653"},"modified":"2016-06-20T19:47:12","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T19:47:12","slug":"incallajta-bread-basket-of-the-inca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/2016\/06\/20\/incallajta-bread-basket-of-the-inca\/","title":{"rendered":"Incallajta – Bread Basket of the Inca"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the tours that took while we were in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was to the ruins at Incallajta. They are some of the most well-preserved ruins in Bolivia and it really gives you a sense of how great the Incan civilization was.\u00a0 Sadly, not a lot is known for sure about the site and it seems that it is not often visited by tourists.\u00a0 The main temple building is massive and is probably an indication as to how important the site was to the Incan empire.\u00a0 In addition to being a ceremonial site, it was also the easternmost defensive fortification for the Inca, with a large wall to protect them from the rival tribes in the Amazon.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
View of the Ruins from Above<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Building<\/a>
Building in Ruins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Our<\/a>
Our Guide, Remy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Us<\/a>
Us in the Temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The area all around Incallajta is extremely fertile land, which is probably why it was so important to the Inca people.\u00a0 Our guide, Remy<\/a>, explained to us that much of the food for the empire was grown in this region, including the potatoes, strawberries, and quinoa.\u00a0 We saw many farms all along the hills surrounding the ruins, with the farmers working the land on the steep hillsides in the same way that their ancestors had.\u00a0 Food from the area was probably taken as far away as Machu Picchu and Tiwanaku.\u00a0 We arrived at the entrance to the site where a Quechua woman watched us curiously from the office where we paid to tour the ruins.\u00a0 From there we hiked up a trail through the trees until the first of the ruins became visible.<\/p>\n

\"Farmland\"<\/a>
Farmland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Quechua<\/a>
Quechua Woman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Walking<\/a>
Walking to the Ruins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"First<\/a>
First Glimpse of the Ruins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The entire site is almost overwhelming, there is so much to see and learn about the Inca people and the importance of Incallajta.\u00a0 We walked along the stone walls, built with the same precision found in Tiwanaku, as Remy told us about the holes that were used by the soldiers to throw rocks at any approaching army.\u00a0 Just as was the case with the castles of Europe, they built the holes at an angle so that spears and arrows couldn’t come through, protecting their warriors.\u00a0 We hiked up to the area above the temples to see the soldiers barracks, very similar to a modern army of today.\u00a0 As we hiked the steep hills, we had an appreciation to how good of shape these soldiers must have been in to walk the wall daily in defense of the empire.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Stone Wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hole<\/a>
Hole to Throw Stones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hiking<\/a>
Hiking the Ancient Trails<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Learning<\/a>
Learning About the Area<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most impressive site at the ruins is the main temple, called kallanka.\u00a0 Only the wooden roof and pillars a missing, making it the most interesting ruin that we saw while we were in Bolivia.\u00a0 The large stone wall with the window-like ceremonial nooks where they would have likely had candles burning was absolutely amazing.\u00a0 The temple is in such good condition that there are places where you can still see red plaster on top of the stone walls.\u00a0 Outside of this communal temple was a large stone that has been worn smooth from all of the sacrifices that have taken place there in the past and apparently are still taking place today.<\/p>\n

\"Main<\/a>
Main Wall of Kallanka<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Plaster<\/a>
Plaster on the Wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Inner<\/a>
Inner Wall of the Temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sacrificial<\/a>
Sacrificial Stone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We climbed up to the top of an 3,300 meter (11,000 foot) hill that towers over the ruins to see the spectacular views of how vast the ruin site is.\u00a0 It was a pretty tough hike and we were pretty winded by the time we reached the summit, but it was well worth the effort.\u00a0 From the hills above, the massive size of kallanka was even more apparent than it was from standing within its walls.\u00a0 Clearly, with such an important structure, this was a key city in the Inca empire.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we may never know the true nature of things that occurred in Incallajta as there is no written records from the Inca, so the only things that we know for sure were written down by the Spanish who conquered them.<\/p>\n

\"Looking<\/a>
Looking Up to the Top<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Building<\/a>
Building at the Top<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Views<\/a>
Views from the Summit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Scale of the Temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We continued past several homes that are still standing, pausing to think about the inhabitants that must have lived within those walls.\u00a0 Most likely they were ancient priests as they would have been the only ones to have such extravagant buildings for the time period.\u00a0 From there we climbed down to the bottom of a waterfall and ate our lunch, grateful for the break from all of the hiking.\u00a0 On our way out of the ruins, we climbed to the top of what is assumed to be an astronomical observatory of sorts.\u00a0 From there, they would have marked the seasons and tracked the celestial movements across the sky.<\/p>\n

\"Resting<\/a>
Resting at the Waterfall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View from the Observatory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Home<\/a>
Home of a Priest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another<\/a>
Another View of the Wall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a wonderful day walking among the magnificent ruins.\u00a0 As was most often the case, it was just the three of us wondering through these spectacular buildings.\u00a0 There doesn’t appear to be any current interest from universities to come and study the site, which seems completely baffling to us considering how truly interesting the ruins seemed to be to us.\u00a0 If you’re in the Cochabamba area, we would definitely recommend taking the time to visit Incallajta and walk the footsteps of the ancient Inca warriors, priests, and farmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the tours that took while we were in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was to the ruins at Incallajta. They are some of the most well-preserved ruins in Bolivia and it really gives you a sense of how great the Incan civilization was.\u00a0 Sadly, not a lot is known for sure about the site and it … <\/p>\n

Continue reading Incallajta – Bread Basket of the Inca<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89944846,"featured_media":3674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4331],"tags":[8792,30367,14837,25679,1098,594157757,678,476546,436,216055,200],"class_list":["post-3653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-america","tag-adventure","tag-archeology","tag-bolivia","tag-cochabamba","tag-culture","tag-hiking","tag-history","tag-inca","tag-photography","tag-ruins","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/imgp8146.jpg?fit=3008%2C2000&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6pbM5-WV","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89944846"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3653"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3690,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653\/revisions\/3690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/isobaresoffit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}