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moon. Its remains sit beside the rectangular sites of the Inca and their temple in honor of
the sun. It was used as a refuge for couriers who passed through on the extensive Inca
Trail system (about 3,106 m, 5,000 km in length) which rivaled the Roman Empire's in
terms of largesse and organization. It was later expanded and used as a refuge for troops
and the last Inca emperor Huayna Capac. Buses leave from the terminal in Cuenca daily
and most tour companies in town offer day trips to the site.
Catedral Nueva
Cuenca's most treasured architectural claim to fame is the neo-gothic New Cathedral of
Cuenca which is famously adorned by cerulean cupolas laid out in glazed Czechoslovaki-
an tiles. German builder Juan Bautista Stiehle began drawing it up in 1880 but the project
would eventually delay nearly a century until completion. Now that it is, the Catedral de
la Inmaculada Concepción's alabaster facade stands opposite the Old Cathedral of the
city (which had been outgrown by the locals) with leafy Parque Calderon muffled
between both. Pink Italian marble glosses the church floors graced daily by the city's
faithful and foreign admirers alike who travel from far and wide to praise a higher power
or just the glory of the church itself.
El Cajas National Park
Locals call Cajas National Park the 'Land of a Thousand Lakes', because though it actu-
ally harbors around 270 glacial-melt lakes and ponds, when you're hiking in this back-
country their count seems infinite. The vast wilderness of El Cajas encompasses a unique
mix of biodiversity - from high-alpine páramo to cloud forest and humid wetland - which
is one of the reasons UNESCO has designated it a Natural Heritage Site candidate.
Both the Inca Trail and the Continental Divide cut through Cajas whose name either ori-
ginates from the Kichwa word cassa , meaning 'gateway to the snowy mountains,' or
simply caxa : 'cold.' The Spanish word cajas translates to 'boxes,' which probably refers
to the compartmentalized bodies of water sprinkled over the land like shards of glass re-
flecting the sky, and which flow to both the Pacific Ocean and Amazon River.
The east-west road that takes you through Cajas is oddly the best place in the park to view
llamas, as I sighted more in that half-hour bus ride than in my entire weekend in the back-
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