Don't Touch the Animals! Travel with the Baysides: Gualaceo, Chordeleg, Sigsig and Bartólome

Weaving a traditional Ikat pattern on the harness loom

On Wednesday we took a day trip to some nearby towns. We made a loop: Gualaceo, Chordeleg, Sisgsig, and Bartólome. We hired Milton Ortiz to drive us. (He is an awesome driver and tour guide, by the way. In fact, we’ve asked him if he’d do another tour for us down to Nábon and Saraguro. We’re on for Sunday! If you ever need a driver in Cuenca, contact me for his WhatsApp.)

Step one, organizing the threads. Fibers are cotton or wood chip. Organized threads are bunched together and tied with strips of yucca plant, a bit like tie dye, color only sets on the exposed thread, leaving the sections of thread under the yucca ties the original color.

Each town is especially known for particular crafts and products: Gualaceo for Ikat textiles and flowers, Chordeleg for silver filigree, Sissig for the straw-woven sombreros, ie Panama hats, and Bartólome for handmade guitars.

Learning about natural dyes

Cochineal—the prickly pear insect dried and pounded into powder for red. Mix it with baking soda or lime and get orange or purple!

It was a beautiful drive in the Andes, scenic, with bright morning sun and dark afternoon rain.

Milton brought us to the best places! Just outside Gualaceo, we toured a family’s Ikat weaving business and they showed us how they use traditional dyes and hand weave fabrics on a harness loom.

The fringes are hand knotted

Finished!

In Chordeleg, we stopped at a silversmith’s workshop and saw how he intricately shaped filigree from threads of silver using hundreds of small pieces for some of the designs.

Chordeleg

How silver filigree is made into amazing designs

In Sigsig, we went to the women’s cooperative to see how their famous straw hats get finished and steamed into shape. The hats are all handwoven by women in the area.

Richard and his helper checking out hats

Hats in process

We also stopped for lunch in Sigsig. Milton took us to the indoor fruit and vegetable market where food stalls line the upper floor and there’s seating cafeteria style with a view to the market below.

On our way to Bartólome, we stopped for thick tostadas and hot chocolate at the side of the road. Then we headed to a guitar workshop.

One of the craftsmen showed us how he placed inlay and how they hand-shaped curved with a thick, heated iron baton clapped to the table and water sprinkled to continuously steam and and work against the baton to curve the thin wood.