Patacancha

We had the privilege to head up into the mountain village of Patacancha to see the weavers at work and see a bit of what (even more) rural mountain life looks like in this part of Peru. Patacancha is the community where most of our women work to weave the textiles sold in our fair trade store here in Ollantaytambo.

It is often impossible to drive the unpaved road to Patacancha during the rainy season, but we were lucky and were able to make it up after getting stuck for only a moment.  

The women use a traditional loom known as a back strap loom with the other end staked into the ground out in front of them. The weave using their own wool from sheep and alpaca herds owned by the community. All the dye is natural as well. Wow, I am unintentionally sounding as if I were trying to sell something here. One interesting fact, though, is that they use a crushed beetle to make the reds and pinks and although it used to be available in large quantities the U.S. meat industry has been buying it up by the ton to dye graying meat red before it hits the market. So it is much harder to come by these days. 

 We stayed around watching the women weave and listening to our friend, Kaitlyn Bohlin talk about facts and things. We did end up making a purchase of a colorful hat for a baby known as a “blahblah.” After watching the weavers and their cute kids we headed to a traditional quechua house and ate a potato (also extremely traditional).