With language school, our routine in Sucre has been very structured. Class at 8:15, then home for lunch at 12:30 with our host family, then couple of hours to go explore, then more classes from 4:30 to 6:30, and then homework. After two weeks we were ready for a little adventure. We decided to head to Icla, a small pueblo about 3 hours away, and then to Candelaria on our way back, another small pueblo know for its weaving cooperative.
We hopped on a van style bus to the small town of Tarbuco, and then we figured we'd wing it to get to Icla. We arrived at the main plaza in Tarabuco and then looked for a truck to catch. We were a little retiscent at first because we weren't sure exactly how it worked to catch a truck. After about half an hour, a bit more emboldened, we asked the driver of a truck that had just arrived where it was going. In the direction of Icla, he said, and then on to some place that we didn't recognize. Great! So up the ladder we climbed up, over the side, and down into the bay where there were about 20 people, most with their sacks of grains and potatos. We had to climb over people and sacs to get toward the open space toward the back, near the cute pig (who spent the entire ride friskily playing hide-and-seek with a big plastic tarp). There were planks across the top for people to sit on and hold onto metal arches that curved over the top of the truck. We eventually made it up onto one of the boards and got to take in incredible views for the next hour and a half.
In the photo below (which is just a zoom in of the one above) you can see the town of Icla toward the center and the slot canyon jutting out from it at 2:00.
When we got town to the town, we hopped out, paid our 5 bolivianos apiece and went off to find a place to stay. We'd heard there was a pension in town, but hadn't gotten any good descriptions of it so we weren't sure what we were in for.
(Arriving in the town of Icla.)
We saw a sign that said "pension" and thought, "great!" When we walked inside, there were stores of food an grain all over the place and a considerable number of flies around. We peeked in a little farther and had to wake up a guy who was sleeping on the kitchen floor. We were very relieved when he told us it was not a pension and that we should check farther up the road.
After asking around, we found our way to the little general store. Someone had said to ask there. They told us "right next door". So we walked in the door they had pointed out and it turned out to be a lovely little place -- much nicer than we'd expected.
(General store is window where kid is standing. Pension door is one just to the right of that. Our room was the upper left room of the same pink building.)
Our room was super cute and clean and even had a new little TV in it that got one channel really good. We haven't watched TV in the entire 3 months we've been here, but with nothing else to do at night in Icla, later in the evening we watched a cheesy American action movie from the early 80s dubbed in spanish.
(After 3 months of traveling, I have become an expert in the joint self-portrait photo...)
(The cat of the house, peeking at me from her favorite spot on the roof.)
After dropping off our stuff, we had 3 hours or so before dark to take a long hike through the canyon.
(The canyon begins as a confluence of water from streams throughout a wide wide riverbed. Although you can't see them in this photo, the area is speckled full of women washing clothes. This area is a main center of activity for the small pueblo.)
(Above is a a blow-up of the previous photo so you can see one woman washing clothes and her dog to the right.)
At the end of our hike, we returned to this spot to sit with our legs dangling over the side of the slot canyon and enjoy the amazing beauty as the sun went down. As we were sitting there a steady stream of sheep and goat herders returned from their days and brought their animals to the water to drink.
From the confluence of streams, we walked down to the wider riverbed and saw the remains of several abandoned adobe homes that had been built right on the river's edge.
As we continued down the river, the rock formations became more and more interesting.
And then the stream of water narrowed again into another slot canyon that was gorgeous and big and continued on for much farther than we had time to walk. During our entire 3.5 hour hike we didn't see one other person.
(Above you can see Rebecca, giving you a sense of the scale.)
It was hard to put the camera down -- it was incredibly beautiful. The rock had mesmerizing striations.
(Rebecca: "Just take one tiny step backwards. Perfect!")
(Cool hole in the rock.)
(Cool airplants lining the cliff wall. They were in bloom with purple flowers.)
(Another even narrower slot canyon coalesced with the main canyon).
Above is the spot we sat in at the end of the day, with goats walking behind Rebecca. The people in the pueblos around here are wary of city-folk and of tourists, so most simply eyed us with mild suspicion. But the family in the pension and at the general store were very friendly and we got the sense that if we were staying here for several weeks people would let their guard down a little more. That evening when we got back to the pension, we inquired whether it would be possible to make us dinner. Of course she said and within 1/2 an hour we each had a hearty and tasty plate of rice porridge, potatos, and meat (for me) and egg (for Rebecca).
The following morning we woke up, bought some bread and snacks at the tiny general store and waited in the center of town for another truck (camioneta) to come by in the right direction. Within 1/2 an hour we were heading back the way we came. About 1 hour back up the road toward Sucre is the equally small village of Candelaria. The pueblo has formed a weaver's cooperative with the help of a local foundation/museum and several international development organizations. In 2006 the cooperative, made up of about 40 or so women, was able to build a small museum where they can showcase their weavings to tourists and sell them.
Unfortunately, when we arrived in Candelaria, a young woman we passed told us that the museum (seen to the left with the pink roof, in the photo above) was closed. It's typically only open when tours are coming through, usually on Saturdays (it was Sunday).
Fortunately, as we were talking to her, another woman, Juana, walk by. She turned out the be the Director of the cooperative. She offered that we could come to her house and see her weaving set up and then she'd be happy to open up the museum for us! Juana speaks Quechua, with a very tiny bit of spanish. As we were walking with her up to her house, we walked by her early teenage daughter who was then able to translate for us.
Juana's loom, like all of the traditional looms used by the women in the cooperative, is a simple wood loom. Fine pieces of bone or hardwood are used to pull the threads through. All of the dyes are made in a traditional fashion from local plants and minerals. The colors in the weavings are incredible and it's hard to believe that even the brightest colors are made in this manner. But there is an incredible textile museum in Sucre which details how it is done.
One 3x4 weaving takes about two months to make. Each weaving depicts a traditional event or fable. For example, one typical theme is a wedding. As you move down the weaving, a story is told of the man and woman meeting, the parents meeting, the preparations for a big party, the killing of a bull for the event, the ceremony itself, etc. Another typical theme is the story of the the fox and the crow -- where the fox convinces the crow to let him hitch a ride on its back and then feasts on the birds in the sky that he normally can't reach. All of the women in the cooperative tell the same traditional stories through their weavings, and all use the same basic symbolic themes. But each of them has developed their own distinct styles and ways of depicting these same themes.
The weavings are gorgeous, colorful, and incredibly intricate -- it's amazing to realize they are done completely by hand. The creation of the weaving cooperatives has been a major success for the craftswomen in the region. It has not only empowered them to sell their own weavings (rather than being exploited by a craft dealer), it has also helped these communities to focus back on their traditional craftsmanship, including handmade dying, handmade production of thread from local livestock, and traditional themes. Before the cooperatives came about, the artistry was being lost in favor of cheaper mass production using fake dyes, factory produced threads, and uninspired simple designs. A renewed pride in craftsmanship has been the result (and higher profits that go directly to the craftswoman and their communities). Another result has been a reinvigoration of creative process -- as more and more highly skilled and highly artistic women learn the trade, the weavings have gotten more and more creative and beautiful. The museum in Sucre details this amazing, and somewhat unanticipated outcome, of all of the efforts put into the weaving cooperatives since the early 1980s. And each of the smaller regions in the area have maintained and renewed their own very different traditional styles and themes.
(Juana at her loom, with some of her weavings in the background.)
(Rebecca standing in front of the Weaving Cooperative and Museum.)
(Rebecca looking at some of the beautiful weavings by different craftswomen. Juana is sitting in the background spooling thread in the traditional fashion. When you walk through towns near here you often see women walking and spooling thread from wool in this manner.)
(Juana and her daughter holding up two of their weavings -- with close-ups below. The one on the left took her a month to make, the one on the right two months. Her daughter has also become a highly skilled weaver as well.)
And so after spending time with (and buying a two weavings from) Juana and her daughter, we walked back to the center of town and within minutes hopped onto a bus that was heading directly back to Sucre. Seeing how easy it was to travel around the surrounding villages, we've decided to do another longer trip to other villages.
...
With our spanish classes ending yesterday, we finally dropped in to one of the school's cooking classes and learned how to make some yummy fried sweet and savory empanadas ("pasteles de queso").
(Pasteles de queso: the perfect mix of fried goodness with savory cheese inside and powdered sugar sprinkled on top.)
Today we had our last lunch with our host family. As I'm writing this, Rebecca is at home doing a family portrait for the larger extended family that all live together at the house as a parting gift. I made another loaf of my mom's special banana bread, which went over big when I made it earlier this week.
(Banana bread...)
We had such a great experience staying with them -- we feel incredibly lucky that we ended up in their house. Our friend Angela left early this morning, but we're hoping to reconnect with her in a couple of weeks to explore the Amazon jungle together.
Today was also May Day, a big national holiday, and the central plaza in Sucre was surrounded by big brass bands and women dressed in incredible costumes dancing.
Tomorrow we head out to the small village of Potolo a couple hours from Sucre. From there we will travel by foot between a number of villages that are only connected by trails, not roads, including Maragua, Quila Quila, and Cachimayu. Then we'll be back in Sucre to grab out stuff and catch a flight to La Paz. We're going to stash a bunch of stuff in La Paz and then hop a 10 hour bus down the salt flats of Uyuni. Then, with only two weeks left of our trip we're going to head to the jungle!
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