Vicunea vs Apaca: Baby Apaca vs Maybe Apaca

I instantly felt in love with Apaca when I put my hands on the softness and warmth of a black scarf made of super fine baby apaca for the first time. That was in a store called Sol on a narrow ally in Cusco. We would of course go back later and bought it. As a matter of fact, I think we systematically combed the whole Cusco for apaca. Pete, our friend who traveled with us, was a shopaholic, not that he liked to admit it. He even crated things that we must look for, sort of like a theme shopping. Yeah, we all absolutely need a crazy apaca hat for ski this winter!

All over Andes in Peru, one can see three major exotic mammals: llyma, apaca and vicunea. They have been domesticated by Incans for thousands of years for their hair. Llymas produce a thick and coarse fiber that is mostly known for its strength. It makes great ropes for instance. Apaca is the most commonly used fiber for weaving. Baby apaca is more sought after due to the conspicuous reason, it is a lot softer. There are many grades: super fine baby apaca is followed by baby apaca which is better than just apaca. There is also royal baby apaca, which by touch, I think it's more or less like teen apaca, falling in between super fine baby and just baby. After that, there is venerable Vicunea, possibly the cutest mammals I have ever seen. Big sensitive eyes, soft short hair, and a delicate deer like build with an equally delicate and shy disposition. Their hair worth a fortune though. First, they cannot be easily domesticated like Apaca. Second, they just don't produce a lot of hair. Yet what is harvested from them are the softest natural fiber in the world.one scarf we had the honor to touch cost about 3000usd. We never bothered to check the price of a coat. Not that we didn't want to. It was locked away like gold jewelries anyway.

We were warned by many locals about baby apaca because it can be maybe apaca. So we steered away from most of the stores and headed straight to the two very best, Kuna and Sol. It was an addictive experience. After exhausting all the stores in Cusco, we managed to add the weight of our luggage in Puno (two apaca blankets) and Lima (a woo-so-soft jakcet for pete and a few more scarfs for us). In the end, I don't think there was any apaca left for us to buy. I told myself I was going to import them in my future art/design store and share with all Bostonian, which made a lot easier for me to justify my purchasing as merchandise "sampling".

Cusco: the leftover of the Incan Capital

The air in Cusco was extremely dry, at least when we were there, that, plus the 11000 feet (3360 meters) altitude, the town was a harsh place to breathe for people del sea level like us. But what can I say? One has to brave the thin air for the beauty of that place. As the old Inca capital, it is the getaway to the Incan heartland. Without much distraction of tress or plants, the old town glistened in orange tiles on roof, sort of naked, hugging the equally naked mountain-scape. Many of these buildings were constructed on the Inca stone foundation dated back to the 16th century. Spaniards were surely good at destroying indigenous culture yet they were also quite practical in terms of recycling. Incans were incredible builders. They perfectly cut and fit the rocks together without mortar, some of the rocks weight tons. The Incan wall withstood earthquakes for the past 500 yrs while the spanish wall, mocked as "incapable", fell and tumbled.

The truth is that Inca is the most well-known historical and cultural export of Peru, which has naturally overshadowed a 5000 yr civilization before it. There was Moche, there was Chimu, there was Nazca, but only after we visited the two archaeological museos in Cusco and later the third in Lima, did we gained a panoramic view of the rich history of the country and its colorful ancient dwellers. In Cusco, some amazing textile, which appeared contemporary, complex and sophisticated, was dated back to over 1000 yrs; And in Lima, the famed Chavin Estela Raimondi in The National Museum of the Archaeology, Anthropology was carved in 1000 BC.

Back in Cusco, we climbed up the mountain at the edge of the town as a warm-up for the Inca Trail. Where we headed was a mysterious ruin called Sacsayhuman. Huge blocks of stones were set into impressive wall foundation. Again, no mortar. But one cannot even insert a blade between the two fitting stones. That's how extraordinary the Incan builders were. Many theories hovered over the functions of the place, yet no one knows exactly what the place was for. As a matter of fact, no one knows how Incan emperor ran his massive country. What was the political and administrative structures. No one knows if there was a written language of Quechua, spoken by Incans, or how one interprets the knotted "messenger's ropes", a device that was believed to encode all the necessary information back then, like a letter.

Sometimes it seems hard to understand how could a significant culture was completely erased from the earth without leaving any residual knowledge. Our guide shed some light on this. Obviously the Spaniards systematically killed all the persons with power who also happened to be the guardians of the knowledge. When those people got slaughtered, the knowledge died with them. So technically, that was how such a long civilization had such a quick death. Through the interaction with many Quechua people we met in Peru, we sensed an anguish that was deeply rooted in the lost of their identity, an anguish of not knowing where they were from. That pain, I think, is harder to bear nowadays when everyone is searching for some sort of identity, whatever it may be.

Peru: what it means to be an Incan

So we are back from a 2-week adventure in Peru, I didn't write a thing there. Having only occasional internet access was not really an excuse. I was just too tired! and busy catching my breath, due to the 3-4K above sea level altitude, well, and the stunning vistas of course. My body was doing wired things there, trying to adjust its machinery to be a highlander. I am sure my red blood cell count shot up a great deal.
Now I am back to sea level living, I sense an euphoria. Maybe it's the lingering endorphins triggered from all the trekking, maybe it's just the oxygen.
The bottom line is that we all have to endure some hardship to appreciate comfort. Now sitting in my comfortable chair, I can start blogging about the trip, which more or less changed my trepidation of being a real backpacker. Who I am kidding? After all, I only loved hiking when I didn't have to sleep in a tent. And imagine going without shower for a few days! The trip was a big leap of faith, but luckily at the end, I was converted.