I’d been traveling through Ecuador for two weeks, but it was in Cuenca, nearly 300 miles south of the capital city of Quito, that I felt the strongest connection to the country’s history. It’s there that the Cañari culture, which predates the Incas, is alive and thriving. The proof of that was standing before me in the form of a healer rolling an uncooked egg over every inch of my body.
Photo: Jennifer Malloy
Originally called Guapondelig, which translates roughly to “Valley as Big as the Sky” in the Cañari language, Cuenca is more than just its cobblestone streets and colonial architecture. The UNESCO World Heritage site serves as a living bridge to the ancient past: a rich tapestry that blends Indigenous culture, Inca history, and Spanish infrastructure.
The Cañari culture traditionally values a matriarchal structure in which women hold significant roles within the community. In fact, the shaman before me is a woman—a role typically dominated by men in South American cultures—demonstrating that this system continues to thrive in Cuenca today. During the treatment, she supposedly drew the negative energy from my body, capturing it in the egg before breaking it open to release whatever darkness I’d been carrying. I was in an unassuming mall at the heart of the city, surrounded by women practicing their healing arts while the scent of corn drifted down from the food court above.
Though my healing experience was in the middle of the city, the chances to experience Cañari culture extend well beyond the city limits. Anxious to learn more about the living history myself, I left the city behind and drove into the mountains on a guided journey with 2 Degrees Expeditions. High in Cajas National Park, as the air thinned and the vast landscape unfolded in lagoons, waterfalls, and valleys, I hiked along an ancient Cañari path. Today, it’s a lesser known extension of the more well-known Inca Trail in Peru.
Photo: Jennifer Malloy
This stretch of the Inca Trail has no crowds, no wonders of the world, and no clear sign that the ground beneath your feet is sacred. There is only the paramo, a high-altitude Andean wetland ecosystem, dominated by spiky achupalla plants and stipa ichu grasses – and harboring a slumbering underworld waiting to awaken once more.
Long before the rise of the Inca civilization in the early 13th century, the Cañari people built the route I was walking, connecting Cuenca to the coast. The Incas later adopted the thoroughfare as both a trade route and an economic lifeline. Along it, chasquis, or fleet-footed Incan runners, would race to deliver fresh fish and tropical produce to the ruling class. Think of it as a centuries-old version of UberEats, powered entirely by human endurance.
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Unlike the Incas, however, the Cañari survived Spanish colonization, and the trail I was on was just one within a network of ancient Cañari pathways in and around Cuenca. Abandoned for years, these 5,000-year-old trails are now being revitalized by a group of intrepid locals, headed by Felipe Neira, the owner and operator of 2 Degrees Expeditions.
With a team of seven, including a biologist, historian, economist, and tourism expert, Neira researched the different ancestral trails in and around Cuenca, then walked and mapped each one, eventually creating 16 separate trails surrounding the city. It’s called the Caminantes project, and together, they’re known as the Caminantes trails.
As Cuenca grew and its city limits spread, development started to encroach on the edges of the encircling valley. “New houses, projects and roads were erasing the ancestral trails and archeological remains,” says Neira. “[They] were still there, but disappearing fast.” He partnered with the city in 2019 once the the project was underway, though the city’s participation ended during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, Neira personally funds the restoration and preservation of the trails through his tour company, offering travelers like me the chance to walk where the Inca once trod, near this sacred city.
The remains of an Inca/Canari trail in El Cajas Natioanl Park, outside Cuenca, Ecuador. Photo: Angela N Perryman/Shutterstock
“The more I hiked the trails, the more I felt the importance of conserving [them] for future generations,” he says. “I would love my kids and their kids to also know the feeling of hiking the rim around the valley of Cuenca.”
Walking on one of these trails felt like equal parts historical trek and outdoor adventure, set in the clouds of the high Andes. Neira’s work may be breathing new life into these trails, but at over 10,000 feet above sea level, I’m struggling to find my breath.
It’s a dangerous state to be winded here, as the trail we’re navigating is dotted with “thin spaces:” caves thought by many to be supernatural portals to the underworld. My guide, Flavio Muñoz, was exceptionally knowledgeable about the native flora and fauna, but most of the information that entered my altitude-addled brain was lost as quickly as my breath. For some reason, it’s only the eerie supernatural legends that stuck in my mind.
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According to Muñoz, the “Andean Yeti” is known to lure unsuspecting hikers through these portals during the summer and winter solstice. The giants are known as the “Guagua Grande.” “It means ‘big baby’ or ‘big boy,’” he grinned. A reference, he tells me, to the diaper-like loin cloth it wears.
This mythical giant is said to dwell in Ukhu Pacha, or the Andean underworld. According to tradition, portals to the underworld open during pagan celebrations, offering passage between worlds. But entering comes with risk: some who cross are said never to return.
“Those who do feel as though they’ve been dreaming,” says Neira. The only proof of their journey lies in the golden cobs of corn they return with, sometimes years after vanishing into the portal. The story is a nod to the ancient Cañari culture’s deep reliance on corn.
For me, my time in this province felt like an awakening, a moment of clarity, where history, culture, and landscape came sharply into focus, revealing how they intertwine to shape a people’s identity. It’s only the absence of a gold ear of corn that reminds me I haven’t crossed back from another world – I’ve simply experienced a little more of this one, thanks to Neira and guides like Muñoz who have worked to open this side of Ecuador to curious travelers. 