Mother´s Day
Trip Start
Feb 06, 2007
1
77
332
Trip End
Jan 14, 2008
Celendin,
Peru
Sunday, May 13, 2007
It was off to the indigenous sombrero market at 6.00am today. It is the biggest and best hat market in Peru and the best hats draw indigenous people from all over the surrounding country. Sombreros are very much a fashion item.
They are made from bleached plant material that is also sold at the market. The best hats are not glued and may be rolled up, scrunched and then reconstituted by wetting. Ideal for travelling. The market is a sea of indigenous people all wearing and buying their hats. At this stage they are unfinished, with a shaggy collar for a brim, and cost 20-25 soles depending on quality
The buyer then takes them to a hat-finishing shop in town that then completes the brim to the buyer's choice, flat, slightly curved .... One can visit these shops to see how it is done, and to get further instruction on the care of the hats, but finding one open is tricky.
The market for lunch ingredients was the next destination. Barb returned to the hostel carrying a very handsome rooster that crowed at dogs and mototaxis.
At 10.00am it was off to the animal market which was very interesting with small and large, generally well kept animals. There were bulls, cows, donkeys, horses, pigs and sheep, behaving themselves well and not kicking out. We saw women leaving with squealing pigs in bags tied to their backs, and later there were animals being led down all the streets in town. Usually the pigs were unwilling, and squealed with every step.
Susan at the hostel invited us to go with her family to a Mother's Day lunch with Bilzeth's aunt and uncle. It was delightful. The men cooked the lunch and it was a special time for the mothers there. After lunch it was drinking and dancing, then outside to continue the drinking sitting on chairs in the street. Down the road a drunk lay with head on the footpath as a pillow, his legs stretched out into the road, resisting all efforts to get him to move to somewhere safer.
Later we went to visit a very old lady and her family, more relations of Bilzeth's. She wanted us all to have a hot chocolate, but there was yet another place to go. When you arrive at someone's house, everyone kisses everyone else on the cheek, even the children.
The final destination was to friends of Susan's and Bilzeth's. Carlos is an artist, and his paintings were hanging on the walls. The house was very small, so unlike our unnecessary palaces in Adelaide, but we all fitted in. Barb's Spanish was tried to the limit with lots of questions (again) about Australia, and also about Australian painters. Carlos has a list to look up on the web, from Streeton to Namatjira to Pro Hart. Conversation rocked to and fro in English, Dutch and Spanish, with everyone having a baffled look part of the time.
