Chinchero: A Very Special Village in Peru, Chinchero, Peru

When planning my trip to Peru, two of the things that I wanted to see besides Machu Picchu were women dyeing textiles with natural pigments and the transformation of an insect into lipstick.

Those things always fascinated me and since finding out that Chinchero, a village near Cusco preserves this old tradition, I became really interested in visiting it.

Chinchero is located 30 Km (18.8 mi) from Cusco and driving took around 40min. Getting out of the car and walking down on the streets my feeling was that it was a very special village: women beautifully dressed with colorful and traditional Peruvian clothes in a low pace environment.

The local market is located in a square very close to some archeological sites, and it’s very simple, with streets without pavements and people selling their products on blue canvases on the ground. Local women, and few tourists mostly frequent the market.

The women have on traditional Peruvian clothes typical from this area: red circular hats and sweaters with colorful details on the wrist and on the front, red shawls, white shirts and black skirts. Braids in the hair compose the very charming and lovely look. The costumes are impressive! ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).