Dear Reader, I’m pleased to report that today was exactly what I hoped this trip would be. After a leisurely wake up and breakfast (hah – I was up at 4:30 for a conference call and worked until 7:30), we loaded into the van and headed to Chinchero, an Incan village at roughly 12,5000 feet on the Anta plain, to visit a local weaving project/workshop/museum. Chinchero had several interesting features, the most pervasive being that it is one of the 12 Andean communities that keep the traditional urban design and social structures from Incan times. This means a very winding urban layout following the natural contours of the hills on which the town is situated. It also means a church built by the Spanish in the 16th century on top of an Incan plaza. Unusually, this church was an incredible example of syncretism at work.
This church was a poor one without the usual golden bludgeon of a typical 16th century Spanish church, so the locals compensated by painting a remarkable set of murals and paintings throughout the church. They combined Catholic themes like the Virgin Mary with Andean themes like shaping Mary’s dress in a triangular shape representing the sacred mountains of the Andes. Likewise, instead of white wings, angels had rainbow colored wings reminiscent of local birds. The whole packaged was a remarkable testament to both the ability of the Catholic church to incorporate local religious and cultural practices, and the power of those same cultural mores to survive, albeit in a different form, in the face of truly mighty forces arrayed against them.
The weaving exhibition, however, was the start of the trip to Chinchero. The center was established 30 years or so ago by a local woman who realized that the waving traditions were dying and was committed to preserving these traditions and providing a way for local women to earn a living, contribute to their family income, and reduce the increasing fiscal dependency on their husbands. Mrs. Callanoupa and her colleagues went from person to person collecting information from the old folks known as great weavers on all aspects of the craft – wool, llama and alpaca hair collection, yarn spinning, dying 9including learning lore on which wild plants provided the best colors or combinations) and, of course, patterns and weaves for particular purposes. Over time the group put this information into essentially an oral best practices repository and now teaches it to people of all ages from Chinchero and the surrounding villages.
The results are absolutely spectacular, with much more muted, natural colors than the vivid, aggressive ones one associated with Andean weaving when your only exposure to it has been the commercial variety, as was the case with me prior to our visit. It was startling how much better these handcrafted pieces made using traditional methods at every stage looked than what most of us are accustomed to seeing. Of course, we bought some goods form the ladies, and while doing so TBJ charmed them into giving him a gift of a little birdy statue that had decorated the place. As ever, TBJ’s cuteness, easy smile, and unbelievable love of flirting with women, came in handy.
From Chinchero, we headed back down to the Sacred Valley for lunch at the amazing Hacienda Huayocasi. This Haxienda was built by the Lambouri-Orihuelas family to serve as both a summer home and a museum for the family’s collection of colonial, Inca and pre-Inca art. Needless to say, the collection is unbelievable, and the presentation in the hacienda itself was as beautiful as the pieces. Our guide Gilmar explained that the “new” hacienda was built in the 1950s to house the collection, but it was unused for many years after the patriarch was murdered in a robbery. Once security was re-established in the region, the family recommitted to the hacienda and, thankfully, built the museum out for private tours to enjoy.
After a fantastic tour and lunch, we headed to the other end of the Sacred Valley to a town called Ollantaytambo, the site of an exceptional, but never completed, Inca temple and our first encounter with the expected hoards of dreadlocked hippy backpackers. Hippies aside, Ollantaytambo provided our first glimpse of the classic Incan structure – sixteen huge terraces carved into the gigantic hillside, steep steps, huge trapezoidal stone building blocks, etc. According to Gilmar, no one really knows the full purpose of this complex, but it was likely a very important site because it is situated at a point at which the rising sun illuminates the site on both solstices, from two different valleys that converge on the spot. It was also remarkable because while much of the building material was carved on site from the granite in the mountain itself, several huge slabs of pink granite were sourced from a mountain top several miles away (and several thousand feet up). How the Incas managed to move the blocks is an enduring mystery.
The other memorable thing about Ollantaytambo is that it was the first opportunity on the trip to strap TBJ into his backpack, shoulder the pack, and start hiking. This was great practice for Machu Picchu, and just a hell of a lot of fun (though also a hell of a lot of work).
From Ollantaytambo, we headed back to the Rio Sagrado hotel where we encouraged TJB to run as much as possible prior to another excellent meal. At dinner, we got a nice surprise when the hotel’s GM and his wife stopped by our table to thank us for our stay, wich us a happy anniversary, and give TJB a gift of several hand-woven finger puppets that TBJ had been playing with that morning. It really was a very nice gesture, and one of the little touches that has made this trip such a wonderful success so far. Not to sound like I’m shilling for Orient Express, but every person we have met on this trip, be it our guides, our drivers, hotel workers or GMs, has been unfailingly kind, generous and helpful. I suppose that it is quite unusual for Orient Express’ private tour customers to have an 18 month old kid in tow, but everyone has gone out of their way to make this work. At Rio Sagrado, the hotel included a set of baby soap and shampoo in our shower along with the usual stuff. IN Chinchero, our driver Boris spent 1.5 hours entertaining TBJ while we were educated about Andean weaving. Throughout the Andean leg of the trip, Gilmar has been remarkably flexible in shifting his schedule to accommodate some playing or running for TBJ and gone out of his way to look for kid-friendly activities. All in all, I feel quite comfortable saying that Orient Express has really knocked it out of the park so far.
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