Altiplano and Sillustani Ruins

On our way back to Cuzco, we decided to stop at the Sillustani ruins near Puno. We turned off the main ‘highway’ onto a small road that wound its way through a bewitching altiplano landscape.



At one particularly beautiful adobe compound, we stopped to take pictures, and the friendly family living there waved us in to see more. The kids were all wearing multicolored hats, and one of the women was wearing my new favorite type of hat, a tiny brown bowler perched at an angle, with a little tassle.



They showed us around their home, composed of several small round adobe buildings surrounding a courtyard.



In the back was a small pen for guinea pigs, a local delicacy. In this picture you can just see that there is a small hutch at the back for them to hide in, with a hole as a doorway. One of the guinea pigs was too fat to fit through the doorway anymore – we figured he was going to be lunch!!



When they were done showing us around the rest of the house, they took us into the weaving room and showed us their wares. Of course. Everyone’s gotta make a living. We bought one weaving made of llama, rather than the usual alpaca. Llama fiber is usually used for ropes, and has a coarser texture. It was actually quite soft, though, and reminds me of raw silk in its combination of strength and suppleness. The undyed llama wool had a really lovely shading of colors from palest cream to warm brown. One of my favorite textiles. I wish I had a picture of it to include, but I forgot to take one before I sent it back to NC with Beulah – she generously offered to take some of our extraneous junk home so we could have room to move in the van again!

Finally, since we will be passing through this way again (if we ever get our car part and get to leave Cuzco), we took some family portraits, promising to print them and give them to the family on our way back through. They were quite amazed that they could see the picture immediately on the screen of our digital camera.



Next we headed over the Sillustani ruins, which are pre-incan funerary towers.



I also got this nice picture of a woman spinning by the side of the path:



And just before we got back to Cuzco we passed through a small town fill to the brim with Sunday marketgoers in all their finery. The hats are just splendid.