Day 2 in Peru and there are lots of photo's for you guys.

Ok, So I am here in actual Peru, after the flight, we got in to Lima at 4pm in the afternoon, I thought, oh I'll take a little nap, and then have some dinner, and promptly woke up at 5am the next morning. Peru is has so much Spanish influence, it actually makes me feel very at home because although I speak pigeon Spanish, I understand allot, and find it really comforting, after listening to Carmella, Carmencita's, and Sole and Bea chatting, it obviously went in somehow!! In fact my passport has a gorgeous purple tweed cover, which I bought from Ness in Scotland, and the lady at the security made a joke about my passport being cold, in Spanish obviously, and I laughed because I understood, that was really really weird.

OK so now for my Hotel. I am sat listening to the river flowing down from the mountain and looking out over the balcony, it is absolutely beautiful  here in Arequipa, there will be allot more photo's of the actual town later on in the week, but for now here is my view:

How gorgeous is that?
And if I turn around this is the other view:

Now, Orysia, this is just for you, just below the umbrella is something rather gorgeous and fluffy:



I haven't had the courage to get too close yet, he is probably quite tame, but I am not sure he is stroke-able, he seems a bit timid, but very gorgeous.

So yesterday after landing we came to the Hotel and then had some lunch, and it seems like there are a few themes to Peruvian food. Fish, corn, beans, rice, chilli's, roasted/barbecued meats, lots of different types of potatoes and of course Chilean wine and delicious beer.

So yesterday I had squid and potatoes, and I have no idea what the sauce was, but it was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous:

Then we went onto meet all the yarn guy's and just get to see what the initial place was like, they have a visitors center set up, which is absolutely gorgeous, and I got a personal tour, which was fantastic, lol, the Alpaca is sorted by hand, only by women I was told because they are able to differentiate the difference in the texture of a fleece, and men don't have that ability, lol. It takes about 5 minutes to sort a fleece, but the sorters can distinguish between very slight differences in the micron of the Alpaca, they start learning from their mothers when they are small children, so they are very very skilled, at the visitors center they have everything on a small scale to show you, so here was a lovely lady I was chatting to who was sorting the alpaca:




Oh, I forgot, they also have all types of alpacas there too:



They were gorgeous!

What I also loved is they had women who came from the mountains, stayed at the visitors center for a few months at a time and worked in the center and gave demonstrations, they were so lovely, they often work with their children with them as you will see, in the pics, also the weavings you can see them doing here, are all hand spun and hand dyed, the colours and designs were amazing:

I asked the lady to show me her spinning, and they don't spin the way I was taught, it was really different, so I need to work that out a bit more, but the spinning was very very even:

And this photo is because the little girl was too gorgeous for words:

These pics are for Amanda, they show the raw dyes they use and the colours from each:

So thats all for now folks, today I am going to the factory, and I am too excited for words, I already have a million ideas for new yarns and designs and colours and there is allot more to come, but I have to say I am falling in love too much with Alpaca, its wonderful.

Just one last thing, Auntie Marylin, could you email me, because I wanted to write to you, but I don't have your email with me.

Bye for now folks.

xxxx