Cusco
On Monday, we got up early, and took a
flight to Atlanta, and then on to Lima, Peru. It is a 6 hour
flight, and we were tired. Our guide met us at the airport, and
walked us to the airport Wyndam hotel.
On Tuesday, we ate breakfast at the
hotel, and took an Avianca flight to Cusco. It was a bumpy ride over
the mountains, and then a very bumpy landing on a 9000 foot runway.
They had to partially depressurize the airplane, since Cusco is at
11,000 feet, and the airplane internal pressure is usually kept at
7000 ft. We can feel the altitude. We piled into vans to get to our
hotel, Costa del Sol Ramada. We have a room on the top floor
overlooking the rooftops, very nice. The hotel was built from a
colonial home.
The afternoon was free; we walked a
little, picked up a SIM card for my phone, and got cash from the ATM
at the bank.
We had a nice welcome dinner at the
Inka Grille.
Our twenty fellow travelers are from
all over, Washington DC, Vancouver, Houston, Colorado, Phoenix,
Idaho, and many more.. All have a passion for textiles and culture.
Our guide, Raul, is excellent; his assistant, Alvaro, says he is
getting a master class from Raul. Nilda, Raul's aunt, is the
foundress of the organization which is working to preserve the Andean
textile tradition, Centro de Textiles Traditionales de Cusco.
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Raul and Alvaro |
Wednesday we spent at the Centro de
Textiles, with different groups learning different skills. I learned
a semi-complex braid, after Nilda took me aside for one on one
instruction. Sandi tried to learn to use a backstrap loom, but
struggled, especially due to language barriers. The instructors were
indigenous, wearing their fancy native costume. Sandi spent time in
the museum and bought some gifts at the store. We had dinner with
Alvaro, one of our guides, at Organika restaurant, a steep hike,
including stairs, from our hotel. The street was named “Resbaloso”,
which means slippery; we would not have wanted to walk it when wet.
The food was amazing and surprisingly inexpensive.
Thursday we went to Pisaq, to attend a
once a year gathering of the weavers from ten highland indigenous
communities. There were about 200 people there, the vast majority
in their colorful native costumes. There were numerous contests,
including songs and riddles in Quechua, all related to weaving. At
one point, our group performed Itsy Bitsy Spider, as our weaving song
and performance.
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Many of the young women in their native costumes were carrying cell phones; it seemed somewhat incongruous. |
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Sandi handing out coca leaves |
Sandi and I were drafted to hand out
coca leaves , which they chew as a treat. They would cup their
hands, spread out a small weaving, or spread out their skirt to
accept the leaves. It was like passing out Halloween candy to
adults.
There were of course demonstrations of
weaving with a backstrap loom. There were multiple techniques within
that genre; we did not understand all the explanations of the
different techniques. Towards the end of the day, there was time for
people to play; they played soccer, skipped rope, spun tops, and
played jacks, childhood games that are familiar to Americans. It
was a joyous event; we were honored guests. At the end, we shook
about 100 hands. The whole thing was really touching. It was quite
amazing; we felt privileged to be there.
We had dinner at Ruicula, a farm to
table restaurant, with most of the food coming from the Sacred
Valley. This is part of the same business as Organika, where we ate
the night before. We bantered with our adorable waitress. On our
way back to the hotel, we watched folkloric dance and music
performances by university students. All in all, quite a day.
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Alvaro, Sandi, and others, pulling the skeins of yarn from the pot. |
Friday was the natural dye workshop in
Chinchero. It was a big event, with huge pots boiling over an open
fire, with Nilda supervising with an iron hand. Between the dyes,
chemicals, and the wood smoke, our lungs took a beating. We had
lunch at a house across the street from their textile center, hosted by Raul's cousin. There
was time for some shopping at the end of the day. We moved to the
Taypikala Sacred Valley hotel in Urubamba, to be closer to the train
station for Machu Picchu.