Peguche (Ecuador)

The village of Peguche was all experiencing local arts and crafts and meeting the villagers themselves for us. Amongst its population, the village has its own weavers and Andean musicians. And because Peguche lies surrounded by countryside, you only need to take a short walk through its streets, past the houses and eucalyptus trees, to reach the rivers and Peguche Waterfall, where you can bathe and have fun playing and splashing around.

Something I enjoyed in particular here was the traditional festival of Inti Raymi, at which the indigenous people celebrate the sun, the earth and the moon through the medium of music. Wearing ponchos and masks, the musicians wander through the streets of the village to the rhythm of the music they play on their quenas, charangos (traditional Andean flutes and lute-like instruments) and violins. They lead you on a dance around the traditional drink, "la chicha", and the power of the sun gets firmly anchored into the ground by the dancers performing back heel kicks in time with the music. The more hardy and intrepid amongst the indigenous people will head off to bathe in the river in order to "wash" away the impurities of the past year and benefit from the silvery rays of the moon, fully rejuvenating themselves ready for the year to come!

As for the local craftspeople I met in the village, they can be observed making rugs, scarves, ponchos and gloves outside their workshops and on the buses. The material they use is alpaca wool, and they head off every Saturday to Otavalo to sell their merchandise. And the musicians, for their part, make wooden panpipes and flutes as lasting symbols of the special part Andean music plays in their lives.