Cuenca and the Austro

El Austro

Regional

Azuay and Cañar — the southern highlands. MOTE is the staple here in a way it is not further north: mote pillo, mote sucio, mote pata (the Carnival soup with pork and sausage). Also: cascaritas, pork skin blistered with a blowtorch in the street; chumales; the sweet MORLACO baking tradition; the roscas and the dulces of Corpus Christi in Cuenca; and the INGAPIRCA ruins that mark this as Kañari country before it was Inca. ⚠ THE KAÑARI ARE A DISTINCT PEOPLE, not generic highland Kichwa, and were conquered by the Inca shortly before the Spanish arrived.