Textile Route Tour

Description Tour Textile route in Cusco

With the “Cusco Textile Route Tour”, you will learn about the most ancient textile traditions of the Incas, the history, geometric designs, zoomorphic, Tokapus, etc. and from the hand of the artisans of the sacred valley of the Incas you will learn the secret of textiles. That is why this route will take us to learn the spinning, the preparation of the wool and the use of the spindle or puska, the loom tools such as Khallwa, wich’una. The twisting of threads or k’anti, the preparation of the looms and their variations, as well as separating the threads from the weft.

Early man had the idea of dressing himself with animal skins. He learned to sew the skins with sinews, strips of skin and guts. And later he made threads from animal and vegetable fibers (wool, linen, silk).  The day when the heavy skins were replaced by materials made with tightly woven and interwoven threads, weaving had just been invented.

Inca textile art is one of the oldest textile traditions of the Andes and became one of the most developed during the Inca heyday. Traditional textiles are an open book of codes, symbols and information, since the art of weaving, in the Andes, is a form of writing or language made up of visual metaphors that transmit values, cosmology and cultural schemes. The Incas stood out for their tapestries and their wonderful feather cloaks, also with geometric designs. They expressed their cosmovision, their sense of space and its divisions.

They were symbols of social status. It is said that the geometric designs, which appear in some textiles, also served to identify the Incas and their families. The love for Cusco textiles dates back to pre-Hispanic times. The Incas valued the textiles they made so highly that they were used to tax the chiefs and the sovereign. Women used to be the main weavers; due to the high level of organization in the empire, they dedicated their leisure time to this activity with patience and skill. Historically, we know that textiles served as key documents for transmitting information. It is possible that some kind of information could have been transmitted through textiles.

Tokapus, which are textile decorations based on series of squares with drawings inside, geometric, iconographic, zoomorphic, etc. shapes in Inca clothing, would have served as a means of communication. Textile knowledge survived during the colonial period and the tradition maintains the techniques and patterns of the past. Looms are still used to weave and configure the warp. Natural vegetable or mineral colors are still preferred for dyeing wool and cotton. Plants, animals, triangles and zigzags are still the main motifs that appear in textiles.

MAIN POINTS OF VISIT

• Cusco (3,390 masl)
• Chinchero (3,762 masl)
• Huatata Community

Day 1: Cusco – Chinchero – Huatata – Cusco

• 09.00 hrs We will pick you up at the hotel to go to the town of Chinchero, from here about 6 km. In Huatata we will meet with the weavers who will be waiting for us, this Association since 1986 hand weaving with natural dyes. Using ancestral techniques they make ponchos, chullos, chumpis, chuspas, blankets, pasadizos, vests, vests, etc. with sheep and alpaca wool.
• Before starting with this art we will enjoy the cuy with baked potatoes that they will offer us as a welcome. Then they will explain the ancestral techniques and how they have remained almost intact, the weavers will show us step by step the techniques of shearing animals, washing the wool, dyeing based on natural dyes, spinning, warp and weaving based on the backstrap loom, Inca instrument that is still used by the weavers today and show us the work done by their hands.
• 15.00 hrs After this imaginary journey through time and everything we have learned, we will start our return to Cusco.
• 17.00 hrs Approximate arrival and transfer to the hotel.

BREAKFAST – HOTEL / LUNCH – AGENCY / DINNER – PASSENGER