Incallajta (July 8th, 2013)

According to Lonely Planet, Incallajta is closest thing Bolivia has to Machu Picchu. We are not able to compare it with Machu Picchu yet, but one thing is sure: Bolivia has not managed to promote this place much, as it seems to receive only one to two visitors per day.

We started our trip very early in the morning taking a shared taxi towards Pocona. We paid 30bs each instead of 20bs, so there were only three people sitting in the back instead of the typical four. After three hours we got off at the small road crossing and started walking. It should have been a two hour walk to Incallajta, but some local guys gave us a ride, so we managed in a bit less than an hour and half.

There was only one woman at the information center and her Spanish seemed to be worse than ours, but we managed to buy the tickets and a small information leaflet. We'd read that it should be possible to buy water there as well, but this was not the case. Most unfortunate for such a hot and sunny day...

Surprisingly, there were two big satellite dishes next to the information center.

One of the satellite dishes at the information center

From the center we continued to the ruins. They were quite large and in a decent state. The whole place is supposedly a replica of the Inca town Cuzco. The central building is considered to be the biggest building the Incas ever built. We had a look at everything in the area within 90 minutes and then started heading back.

Is this is the largest building the Incas built, or will a bigger one still be discovered?

Overview of Incallajta

The buildings now lack roofs

The hike back to the road to Pocona took around two hours. There we were hoping to catch a shared taxi back to Cochabamba, but unfortunately, all were going in the wrong direction. Eventually, a friendly Peruvian priest working in the area gave us a ride towards the main road. Here, we could finally buy something more to drink, and five minutes later, we stopped a bus going back to Cochabamba. It seemed that we'd have a smooth way back to town, but alas! Another bus from the same company had some problems, and our driver went to help him. After an hour, the other bus was still not fixed, but our driver decided to continue driving. We arrived safely back to Cochabamba before sundown.

More pictures are as usually available.