Písac

Písac sits at the mouth of the Sacred Valley with Inca terraces climbing the hill behind it and a market square that fills with cloth on Sunday. The fine stripe on our Písac cap is the kind of stripe you see here: narrower bands, more of them, colour changing every few threads. It is a quieter weave than Cusco's rainbow, a valley away.

The terraces

Above the town the hillside is cut into curved agricultural terraces that follow the contour of the slope, hundreds of them, still walled in fitted stone. At the top is the Inca site of Písac: temples, storehouses and a cliff face of tombs. From there the whole valley floor is visible, the Urubamba river running through it toward Ollantaytambo and, eventually, Machu Picchu.

The Sunday market

The market in the square below has run for as long as anyone remembers, and on Sundays it takes over the town: produce on one side, textiles on the other, stalls hung with aguayo, ponchos, belts and bags. Much of it is now made for visitors; some of it is still the working cloth of the villages above. Telling the two apart is a skill, and the fine, close stripe is usually the mark of the better weaving.

The fine stripe

The Písac is a full-weave five-panel camp cap in that fine stripe, with maroon chakana embroidery at the front. It belongs to the rainbow family, K'uychi, but it is the restrained end of it: the colour is all there, just in narrower bands. If the Cusco is the loud one, the Písac is the one for people who want the cloth without the shout.

Other cities

All twenty on the cities. Cusco · Urubamba · Maras · Puno · Huaraz · Arequipa · Nazca · Paracas · Callao · Iquitos · Cajamarca · Tacna · La Paz · El Alto · Copacabana · Oruro · Potosí · Sucre · Cochabamba. See all the pieces named for Andean towns on headwear, and the cloth families on the weaves.