Experiential tourism in Willoq and Patacancha

How to get there: The community of Willoq is 78 km (1 hour 30 min) from Cusco by an asphalted road.
Location: The province of Urubamba, Cusco, belongs to Ollantaytambo.
Height: 3400 masl.
Activities: culture, archeology, gastronomy, nature, crafts.
Flora and Fauna: 60 birds and more than 700 species of plants.

According to some writers, the population of Willoq and Patacancha is a very particular ethnic group, maintaining a direct line of the last Incas, which is corroborated by their same surnames as Sinchi Pukha, Cusipaucar, Tupha, and others.

The living tourism in Willoq and Patacancha is close to Ollantaytambo, one of the most privileged places to get to know the Andean tradition. The people of Willoq and Patacancha meet with visitors to integrate society that respects them as equals. Unsurprisingly, they scatter around the town’s square and streets of Ollantaytambo.

The inhabitants of these communities maintain their current culture. One of the specialties of these descendants of the Incas is their textiles; their clothing, as is often the case with a series of community enterprises, has eye-catching colors.

Patacancha is the stimulus to open up to experiential tourism, which arises from having long observed how travelers came to a destination near Ollantaytambo. In this case, they spent these few hours. They then retired in their buses without having had the opportunity to learn about a true treasure trove of handmade textiles and how they do it, on the one hand and the other, excluding poor communities from the benefits of good tourism.

The Andes people then began to discover in the first place that their textiles, in general, are valuable capital that needs to be recovered to put it in value, and, at the same time, the world is emitting tourism values that keep the expressions of ancestral culture alive.

Travelers who appreciate the quality of famous art visit these communities because they know they will find pieces of excellent clothing very different from the massive products exposed in the Cusco markets.

In addition, in Willoq and Patacancha, you will be able to meet Andean people who have become aware of the value of the traditions of the town and are willing to share them with much friendliness and joy. In scenarios that combine a mountainous nature of exceptional beauty with architectural elements like Andenerias and houses raised with adobe and roofs with tile or ichu.

When one embarks on the trip to Willoq, one can visit the villages of Rumira Sondormayo and Q’elkanka, also of weavers. From the top, Willoq appears deployed in an endless, wild, and cultivated flora at the foot of the great mountains of the Andes.

Visitors can feel a different city atmosphere when one is near the village. After all, you breathe pure, pleasant, natural air in that place. The human presence adds to the intensity of red and black that dominate the traditional dress. For that reason, the common name was given to these Inca descendants, “Huayruros,” because their dresses outstripped the color of the seed of good luck.

The clothes are gorgeous and colorful shawls woven in different shades of earth, chullos decorated with beads and buttons, embroidered monteras, ribbons, braids, and hands. Everything in Willoq has the harmonic movement that demands the textile, composing a world of color and life. It will be an unforgettable experience in experiential tourism.

Holes, balls, looms, pots with boiling dyes, dye plants, and raw fibers all attract the attention of a tourist who visits it, really pass from the best to know the customs and traditions of this town, experiential tourism.

The villagers welcome the visitors with songs and dances; it is striking that some wear white clothing with long sleeves of the same color.

Its dance is wiphala, which imitates the movement of the huallata (the Andean goose). At the same time, it means Inca joy and nation. This culture introduces the tourist to a completely different world with a reality beyond our imagination.

The weavers are well organized in a textile center of 260 artisans from other communities.

This tradition is passed down from generation to generation, as the weavers learn from their mothers and teach their daughters in the same office.

The men perform similar roles. Many are porters on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and complete their workdays this way. These men are solid characters and very well-fed, thanks to the green leaf of coca that makes their texture resistant to the hard work involved in being porters.

The weavers’ place is active every day of the week, but it is preferable to visit it on Saturdays when they have prepared to receive the travelers. There, they can share ideas and customs.

Patacancha is thirty minutes from Willoq; there is also a weavers association. On average, women only speak Quechua and, like their neighbors, weave wonders such as llicllas, chalinas, shawls, bags, and blankets, a fineness that the natural fiber (sheep or alpaca) can give the texture of silk to all its textile fabrics.

It is imperative to know that the inputs to give color and life to their fabrics are obtained from plants in the area that provide accurate colors for their craftwork; their designs have a unique meaning.

Cusco has another option for experiential tourism, Raqchi, which is another alternative for your experiential tourism in Cusco.

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