Starting day 6 is our first workshop. Rufina and Inez are my first teachers. They are wonderful ladies who have an extraordinary amount of patience for our clumsy attempts at learning to knit differently. So first off, the five needles we are given are hooks at one end and pointed at the other and made from bicycle spokes. The yarn is handspun alpaca in lovely colours made from natural dyes. Our mission is to make a coin bag. The method is Peruvian … ball of yarn in lap, yarn up and around the back of one’s neck and then down to the needles. Cast on using the long tail method (Rufina’s way is slightly more complex, but is still a long tail). Knit in the round with the inside facing out, using your thumbs to catch the yarn around the needle. All is well until we introduce colour number two! What fun … we aren’t there to learn Spanish and Qechua or to teach knitting, we are here to learn to knit the way our Peruvian teacher’s teach it. So what if a row of 60 stitches takes half an hour or more? As I watch Rufina’s hands I notice she isn’t now using her thumbs! Fingers are manipulating the yarn as she twists the colours around each other so there aren’t any floats to be caught in unsuspecting fingers. Actually, it is the speed with which she works that is the amazing part.

During the evening we are taught how to spin using a drop spindle. Tonya from Ayacucho makes spindle spinning look like a bit of a dance. She is ever so rythmic in her movements that it is a pleasure to just sit and watch. It is, of course, another thing to duplicate what she is doing and of course we don’t no matter how hard we try!

Knitting and spinning are not the only things happening in the gardens and rooms of Casa de Melgar. Tapestry weaving with Alejandro, gourd engraving with Florencio and Leon is teaching braiding. I’ve come home with many finely carved gourds and pieces of gourds used in jewelery. The carving is typically of scenes of Peruvian life. Not only are they intricate and detailed, but interesting in the stories they tell of life here.

To see all the Peru pictures click here.

Both Jean and I have managed to catch colds … drats!!! Neither of us will stop though, just pass the kleenex and lets get on the bus or plane or whatever. Actually the flight to Arequipa is pleasant and my ears don’t object to the descent at all. Our guesthouse is only a very few streets from the centre of this city. It is very sunny and warm too. Very unlike Lima that was always overcast and grey. I’ve read that Arequipa is sunny 360 days a year so I’ll be surprised to see rain here.

Back to our guesthouse, La Casa de Melgar is an 18th century building that has no less that four courtyards and a terrace or two. Everything is charming … the staff, the rooms, the gardens, and even the guests. There are three volcanoes near by, namely Misti, Chachani and Pichu Pichu. A small earthquake happens the first day too, though I am unaware of it. Our tour of the Convento de Santa Catalina is given by a very humourous young lady. If I got a little carried away with picture taking, forgive me, there was a great shot every twenty steps. Other highlights are the visit to see “Juanita the Ice Maiden” and the tour of Michell and Company. Juanita was found on Ampato (a volcanoe behind Cabanaconde) and is a frozen mummy that has survived in very good condition for more than 5 hundred years. Besides a very interesting book written by Johan Reinhard, there are many Internet sites that have good information about Juanita if you are interested in learning more. The tour of Michell was great … I really enjoy seeing how things are made. Half of all the alpaca fibre that is processed in Peru is done by Michell. We had several opportunities at stash enhancement in the following days that came via Michell’s ‘factory outlet’.

I haven’t said a thing about food yet. I can say for sure that I’m not losing any weight and there aren’t as many salads and vegetables as I’m used to. There are many fruits that are totally new to me, some are very wonderful for different reasons. I especially like the slippery sweet Granadilla.

Perhaps there isn’t as much spicing of the food as I would have thought. Someone suggested that many restaurants tone down the spicing, thinking that is what tourists would prefer. Too bad! The coffee is reasonably good, and it is always interesting to see how it will be served. Sometimes it is instant (not awful instant like at home), sometimes there is a very strong espresso that arrives with boiling water so you can mix to your own prefered strength, sometimes it is ready to go. The milk is different too, something like our UHT at home.

To see all the Peru pictures click here.