"N" is for "No, gracias...well, OK, I'll just buy one..."

I was up early today, and flung the curtains open to happily see another day of blue sky and no rain. Before I left Cranbrook I had checked the weather for Cusco and all this week there was supposed to be rain...but we haven't seen a drop...nice! I had prepared myself for the worst, and so even a slightly gray sky seems gorgeous. Once again, being a bit of a pessimist has paid off.

I went for a stroll through the neighbourhood to work up a bit of an appetite before we left for our adventure of the day. I'm just not hungry here, which is worrisome because there are so many great foods to try. Even breakfast has interesting things.

The hotels that we stayed at all had the same type of breakfast, a bit more than a continental, but not a full North American. There were a few types of buns, sadly, all white...it's just about impossible to find a whole wheat bun, however, I guess the fact that they use virtually nothing in the line of preservatives and all non GMO's probably makes makes a white bun here exponentially more healthful than a 100% whole wheat at home. Or maybe not, I don't know, but I felt healthier. Anyhow, there were a few types of buns, a panini-type of toast that I quickly  became addicted to, and honey, a very liquidy, drizzly, sweet honey to pour over. Messy, but oh so tasty.  Mmmmm....honey mess....

There was usually a plate of  sliced meat, looked like regular sandwich meat, I stayed away from that, and some cheese, probably picked up at the fly-ridden market, but I ate it nonetheless and with no ill effects. There were always at least two pitchers of a yummy, runny yogurt, I would imagine non pasteurized, and I steered clear of that for the first few days, I figured I'd let my innards get used to one new set of bacteria at a time. There was usually bowls of stuff that I was never quite sure if it was popcorn or cereal. Or maybe a combination of both....one bowl looked like giant puffed penne pasta, but had a sweet taste like Sugar Crisp. I just ate a few "raw". Lots of fresh fruit; watermelon, papaya, mango, banana, oranges and grapes. And juices...lots of juices. And of course Nescafé with hot, frothy milk. If you wanted an egg, you could pre-pay a sole (about .70 cents CDN) and have a scrambled or fried one. And if you wanted jam, you had to ask and a small dish would be carefully handed to you, usually with a skin on top of it....same jam as yesterday and the day before that and the day before that.....The butter was usually hidden away as well, and was doled out in tiny little cubes. I didn't see the need for butter or jam, the honey was delicious enough for me.

After everyone had finished breakfast, including the one woman who was just not feeling well, we hopped on our private little van and headed out of Cusco to Ccaccaccolla, along a road that was one switchback after another, and a bumpy unpaved road as well, not fun for our poor nauseous woman, she chewed ginger and tried to keep her eyes closed. Eventually we arrived at the small village which has a woman's weaving cooperative, the main reason we were there. The men are all porters for the Inca trail, for G Adventures, and thus are away a great deal of the time, so the women work...and I mean work,  plus they raise the llamas and the children. On this day they seemed to be digging an area that was going to be a foundation for a new building.  It just seemed very...ahh, I hate to use the word "surreal", it's become so trendy, and I do hate trendiness, but I think that's the best word in this case...it seemed surreal to see these women in their vividly coloured traditional garb, babies on back and shovels in hand, toiling in the hot sun.

Hmmmm...it bothers me to say surreal, I'm going to change that to: "it was an unrealistic juxtaposition to my eyes" to see women dressed this way, with babes and shovels in arms, toiling in what is normally a man's job. It wasn't dreamlike, as surreal implies, it was more eye opening than anything else. Basically, if work needs to done, then do it.

Shovels in  hand, babes on back. A hard life.

Sweet Eddy and a sweet baby

The women did not mind having their pictures taken, they actually encouraged us to do so.

The women who weren't shovelling came running over to us, everyone got a huge hug and most of us were lifted off of our feet...these small women are strong. They always choose one person in the tourist group to dress up in their traditional clothing, and of course it would be our poor sick woman, who had hardly managed to clamber down off of the bus. But, good sport that she is, she donned the apparel and hung out with the locals. I'd love to put her picture here, but she might not appreciate it!



Freshly shorn, possibly getting ready to spit at me.



Various dyes.

We were given a tour of the weaving facility, it was really interesting. We "met" some of the llamas and alpacas, both post and pre shaved, and we were handed bundles of grass to feed them, I was more concerned that one of them might spit at my camera, they all had "that look" in their eyes.

Then we were shown how they spin the hair into wool...I don't think I've worded that correctly, maybe they "card the wool into yarn", but they did magicky things, and hunks of shaven llama turned into soft strands of stuff.

And if that isn't enough magic for one morning, then they took different types of leaves and roots and bugs and plants and mixed them, and boiled them, and lit fires under them so that mystical puffs of smoke swirled through the air, and ground them with mortar & pestle in all kinds of different combinations, and all the colours of the rainbow appeared, no wonder pachamama (Mother Earth) was so revered. And women....the Incas revered women as well.

I was really impressed at all of that. Oh, and the beetle they used to make  vivid red was the "cochinealla" beetle...when I heard that I inadvertently gasped  "Starbucks!" and to my surprise, a lot of heads nodded in agreement. 

Let me quickly explain, a while ago, maybe a year or two, Starbucks added a vegan strawberry smoothie to their menu, and they stressed the vegan part in all their advertisements. Well, long story short (because I blogged this very thing in this very blog last year...it was quite an anti-Starbucks rant) a whistle-blower let everyone know that the red colour in the smoothie was actually the cochinealla beetle...the vegans were eating bugs. Now, the bug part isn't as disgusting as it sounds, this beetle has been used for coloring for years and years...it's FDA approved and not a health risk in the least, everyone knows that almost everything you eat is allowed a certain part of bug parts...it's all just protein anyhow.  The point was...the smoothie wasn't vegan and Starbucks knew it. Another large corporation screwing the public for money. Ground up beetle was cheaper and more economical than genuine strawberry colouring. Anyhow, before I work myself into a starbuckian dither, I'll just say that it was very interesting to see the beetle in its natural form.

Doing magical things with fire and plants.

After the wool is coloured, they the take another type of leaf and grind it into a bowl of warm water and stir it vigorously and it foams up like the best quality shampoo, the yarn is washed and then hung to dry.

then we watched a bit of weaving and knitting and were given free reign to browse the stalls. There was so much stuff, sweaters and scarves and the Peruvian toques with tassels that everyone seems to feel the need to buy (yes, I bought 2 myself and I don't even wear toques) There were ponchos and socks and mitts and all of these items came in a multitude of sizes and colours...something for everyone.

There were blankets large and blankets small, weavings to hang upon your wall, and oh I wanted one and all...even coloured yarn all wrapped in a ball.

Fingers a flyin'



And I used to complain about needing a better mat to stand on at my workplace.



And a brand new babe on her back. No maternity leave here.

 It was very humbling to see these women work, I think a person needs a taste of other peoples lives every now and then in order to reevaluate your own life. I always return from holidays like this with a renewed appreciation for what I have, and I hopefully stop complaining about the little things so much. And if you think these women have it bad...wait until I get to the women who live on the floating islands of Uros.

After purchasing a few items, it was time to hit the curving, bumpy road once more, and head off to the ruins of Pisac.