I posted this image on my now defunct blog a few days after taking it in Quito in 2015; it remains one of my favorite images from the past decade or so, so I’m moving it here now exactly 11 years to the days after it was taken, to give it a more permanent home.

There’s a lot I like about this image. On one level, the woman’s gaze as she’s stopped in traffic. On another, the connection between her and the logo on the bus.

Atahualpa, the last emperor of the Inca Empire, was very much a Quiteño. His father, the Inca Huayna Capac, was from Tomebamba to the south; his mother, the princess Pacha Duchicela, from Caranqui, to the north. While it is debated, many historians believe Atahualpa was born in Quito. His palace ruins lie deep beneath the Church of San Francisco and its eponymous square.

When Atahualpa accepted Francisco Pizarro’s invitation to a feast in his honor in the small Peruvian Incan town of Cajamarca, he was ambushed upon arrival and imprisoned, his men slaughtered. Appealing to the Spaniards’ greed, Atahualpa offered a room full of gold and silver in exchange for his release. Pizarro agreed, only to have him executed after the ransom, by many accounts the largest ever demanded, was received. That was August 29, 1533, effectively marking the end of the Inca Empire and the birth of European colonization in South America.

An uncropped vertical version of the image, which I prefer, is below.

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Photo from 7 March 2015, 11 years ago today, in Quito, Ecuador.