The wise use of all natural elements found in the desert, like the soft wool of Alpac, LLama and Vicuña (the andean “camels”), is yet another thing to look forward to.

There are ponchos and ruanas for every taste and size, and mind you they are both male and female garments! The tradition of covering yourself with long, soft, well knitted pieces, is as old as the mountains around you in the Andean regions, all the way from Chile and Argentina, through Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and up to Colombia, you have people wearing a variety of these classic, and classy pieces.

To have a clearer idea, a poncho is a piece like the one in the picture, you basicaly put your head through a slit in the middle, a ruana has a longer cut all the way downd the front, so you have more ways of playing with the parts.

A really good poncho or ruana, may seem costly, but they will outlive you and be the reason for praise, whenever worn. And wear it you can, over a little balck dress, or casual over jeans. When you come out to San Pedro, just find yours, ask who the artisan is, what wool was used and with which plants it was died, they all come with a different story, plus the smaller sizes are ideal for children.

With the experience of looking for good ponchos, we can assure you that some of the best of both poncho and ruana, will be found at the hotel shop in alto Atacama. So you won´t have to look evry far!

Picture: poncho Aymara

Link: Poncho, Wikipedia