Juan Carlos picked us up in the morning and we drove to Chinchero mostly to see how the local weaving was done. The drive took us back up to 12,000 feet. I was doing better with the altitude, but still getting quite winded with any exertion. Walking up steep cobblestone roads requires a bit of work in the low oxygen environment.
In a large grassy square below the church about a dozen local women had woven blankets, table runners, and such along with dolls for sale. The invitations to examine their wares is the same in any language in any part of the world. I must admit that here they were more willing to accept a polite no thank you than in some places I have been. Some items were authentic and some were clearly factory made with synthetic materials.
The Sunday market was our next stop. Over one hundred sellers had taken up spots in an outdoor market with long covered rows of simple raw wood log frames roofed by red clay barrel tile. A large part was the same sales items we had seen all over. The interesting part was what the locals came for. The fresh produce, meats, poultry, and household needs. There were bags of coca leaves and a woman butchering whole chickens as well. The corn that they had boiling at the street vendor was one we had seen before. Huge white kernels the size of my thumbnail.
After this we went to an alpaca weaving cooperative. We were met with a cup of hot mint tea and seated in an area laid out with baskets of plants, flowers, fruits, minerals, and raw wool used in processing alpaca into textiles.
A young lady introduced herself to us and demonstrated from beginning to end the process. She had asked the raw wool with soap made from a local root. She took cleaned wool and spun it by hand with a small wooded spindle called a pushka. The new yarn was ready to be died. From a moldy piece of cactus she pulled a dozen or so little bugs and crushed them in the palm of her already red hand. The red paste was added to some water and some of the yarn was submerged and soon came out bright red. Adding lime juice made it orange. She said the colors were fixed using a naturally found acid. Uric acid. With the original colors of alpaca being brown, white, and black there were lots of possibilities.
An older woman was seated on the ground in the process of creating a small blanket or something. The vertical fibers were stretched out in front of her and she was using a polished piece of alpaca bone to run the horizontal yarn in and out creating the intricate pattern of the tapestry.
Dusty loved the demonstration, but was especially intrigued by the pushka. Our instructor patiently showed her the subtle art of pulling the fibers into a uniform thread while spinning the pushka to gather the newly formed yarn. We have about a cubic foot of the wool from our angora rabbit that we collected over the years of his bunny life. She has wanted to do something with it and we asked if there was a pushka available. It was probably one of the few times she had been asked for one, but she went into her supplies and came out with one. A simple long pointed stick with a roughly round disk near the tip.
We generally don’t buy much stuff. But this time we really appreciated the demonstration and the pushka would allow Dusty to try using material she had sitting on a shelf for nearly twenty years. We added one skein of baby alpaca yarn and we were on our way back to Cusco.
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