Chinchero!!

/ Ed Armstrong
Today was a very fun day!! We drove to Chinchero and watched a demonstration about how these rural women took raw alpaca, lamb, and vicuna wool, died the wool, and then created hand-made items for sale. These women were incredibly talented!! I came very close to buying this poncho!!

This is a menu at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. They are advertising the foods available on the menu. Cuy is guinea pig, ceviche is the raw fish in lime juice and spices, gallina is a Peruvian chicken stew, and anticucho is a popular Peruvian meat dish usually made from beef heart. It was certainly fascinating!!

This is a statue of Pachacuti. He was the first historical emperor of the Incas. He is highly regarded by the Peruvian people.

We ate lunch today in Chinchero. It is high in the Andes at 12,450 feet above sea level!! The air was so thin that one of our travel mates needed to receive oxygen. They served us a wonderful series of foods. This photo is of a fantastic potato soup with a variety of vegetables and spices.

On the table was a basket of things we thought was a decoration assortment of rocks. It turns out that these were corn nuts that were dried and baked to make them nice and crunchy. They were great!!

This food was a shock! Next, the woman carried in a plate of cooked guinea pig!! Everyone was shocked!! A few minutes after this photo was taken, she served a series of pieces of guinea pig meat. I did not think I would eat it, but once it was sitting in front of us, most everyone picked it up and tried it. The skin was tough, but the meat tasted like pork. I would probably never order it, but a taste seemed not too bad to try.

We enjoyed looking at all the products these women created. From ponchos, to bedspreads, to table clothes, these ladies had made some fantastic products!! My favorite aspect was all the colors!!

They provided a demonstration of how they began with raw wool, cleaned it, and started to create thread.

It was interesting to watch how quickly their fingers moved to get ready to weave the wool.

This massive bedspread was the work of 10 different women each making a panel and then weaving all the panels together. It required several months to create it!!

My favorite part of the demonstration was how the dying process worked. The showed different plant parts and insects (in the baskets on top of the table) that were crushed, placed in boiling water and then the wool was placed in the mixture. We were shown different product that created the various colors. My favorites with the blues and purples. It was fascinating to watch!!