Planeterra – Weaving Demonstration

Our first stop on our way to archaeological sites in the Sacred Valley was a visit to Planeterra. This is a beautiful little village that’s now sponsored by G Adventures. It’s tucked down in the Sacred Valley, and the women in this village make wool from llamas and alpacas, weave it themselves, and dye everything with all natural dyes. It was a great experience and I always love to see the way things are made and get a little glimpse of local life.

These are the views from the base of the village

The village itself

The first part of the demonstration was actually the last step. We went into their weaving rooms and watched as about five women took their hand-spun thread and wove them together. Then, there were samples of the finished products in different patterns and she explained the different meanings that each had.

The next part of the demonstration, was going up and meeting the alpacas and llamas that they use to make the beautiful wool!

Stacey and I met this woman and her beautiful little girl by the alpaca pin. (Stacey looks pretty good for having altitude sickness, huh? 😉 )

My favorite part of this visit was watching the ladies spin the wool. It was so incredible to watch the way they spun it, so beautiful to watch them in their bright outfits, and so great to see the ladies cracking up and having a great time!

The last part was showing us how they washed and dyed the wool. Even though the spinning was my favorite to watch, this step was the most interesting. It completely blew my mind how they made the dyes. Everything was completely natural and the things they used were so interesting. For example, to make the plum purple color, they pulled bugs out of a cactus and ground them up to a powder then used that to dye. Then if you squeeze a lemon into that, it turns to red! Crazy! Plus, all of these colors were extremely vivid!

Of course, we ended the visit with a bit of shopping! I bought some beautiful coin purses and a pretty sweet sweater with an alpacas pattern! (You’ll see that in a later post!) I would highly recommend making a stop here to buy some truly authentic and all-natural woven treasures!

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