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After an overnight stay in the northern Ecuador city of Otavalo, the group scheduled time in the morning to explore the cityscape of Otavalo and wander through its large outdoor market to see handmade local products. The market was one of the best opportunities so far for the students to interact with Indigenous Ecuadorians and other local residents outside of the the guided structure of activities.

“These towns are so alive, and feel so vivid, especially when you get to see and experience them up close, first-hand,” said Jaden Burroughs, a financial economics major from Ellensburg. “The people are so welcoming and the hospitality is incredible.”

After lunch, the group spent the afternoon at one of the most important sets of pre-Incan ruins in Ecuador, at the archaeological site of Cochasquí.

Cochasquí consists of 15 truncated pyramids and 21 burial mounds, locally called “tolas.”

The site was a city and holy place of the Caranqui people, a pre-Incan culture of central Ecuador, and the pyramids began to be raised somewhere around 500 BC, with construction continuing through the Spanish conquest of the 1500s.

The primary construction material used in the pyramids is a volcanic stone called “cangahua,” which was mined about a kilometer further up the slopes of the Mojanda volcano (13,950 feet).

Archaeologists have theorized that Cochasquí was a ceremonial and astronomical center, used for meteorological purposes to calculate solstices and aid in determining when crops should be planted. One of the largest pyramids has a set of extensive solar and lunar calculators used for these purposes.

Cochasquí we was a pivotal site in the 17-year Incan civil war that ended with the fall of the northern Incan empire, including most of Ecuador, to the southern faction based in Cuzco, Peru. The long and bloody war was followed very soon after by the arrival of the Spanish and the defeat of the entire Incan empire, which was much weakened by its years of strife. The dissolution of the Incan empire and the arrival of the Spanish set in motion the cultural and societal underpinnings of what would emerge as modern Ecuador in the 1800s.

Student Wren Hart, a psychology major who will graduate after finishing the Ecuador course, said Cochasquí’s history and culture were eye-opening.

“The incredible effort over hundreds and hundreds of years to build that site is something you almost have a hard time wrapping your head around,” Hart said. “And thankfully the Spanish never saw it as valuable because it probably wouldn’t be in the condition it is today if they had.”

At the museum at the site, the students saw many of the pieces that had been excavated from the site, many of which originated from cultures far from Cochasquí, highlighting its role in regional trade.

Noah Goodwin-Rice, a biochemistry major from Newport, Oregon, said the weight of thousands of years of settlement at Cochasquí was a palpable feeling at the site.

“This one spot has collected so much history - thousands of years’ worth, and you can really feel it,” he said.

See a photo gallery from Ecuador here.