Planeterra

The company we are travelling with are called G Adventures and they support projects in local communities. We visited two of these in the same day, the first one was the setting up of a weaving project, which helped women to develop the skills they already have and help them to market them better.

G Adventures helped this community rebuild its town after a landslide and built a building in which the women could do weaving on a larger scale. The men in the town are employed in the dry season by G adventures to be porters on the inca trail. The rest of the year the men work their own farms. All the time we were in the town we saw no men.

We were given a talk on the patterns that the women use in their weaving and then we were given the chance to work on the looms. The hat I am wearing shows that I am married, you can take the hat off and wear it upside down so no White is showing that means you are single and looking for a man! 

David feeding the alpacas and llamas who showed their thanks by spitting at him. I had food for them too but was too slow feeding them as I was taking this photo, which one took umbrage at and decided to break out, he was quickly rounded up and shoved in his pen. 

A group of the women on the project , there were groups all over the place doing certain jobs, spinning, dyeing wool, knitting and weaving.

The lady who led our tour, had an unusual name which sounded a bit like Heidi, so that will do! She gave me the chance to spin some wool, reminded me of my friend Ann, she would have done it no problem. We were shown the differences between wool, with baby alpaca being by far the softest. 

We were shown how they wash and dye the wool using all natural products.

One of the ladies doing weaving while sat on the ground, as you can see all the women wear the same. After this we got the chance to buy some of their goods, David got himself a lovely Peruvian hat, a nice shade of green with alpacas on. He looks a bit like a gnome in it, all he needs is a fishing rod. Nice and cosy though will be good for the trek. 

We also went to a restaurant set up by G Adventures, they sent chefs in to train up local people who now run the restaurant by themselves . The food was very good as was the service, the bread in particular was lovely. There was far too much food though. We were served a dish which had quinoa (I think that is how you spell it) in it which resembled the texture of haggis.