Pan Pipes, Zampoñas & Textiles

 

A friend in Australia asked us to send him a set of pan pipes, and seeing as we live in the land of pan pipes, we figured it was as good as done.

There are a few shops here in Otavalo that sell musical instruments including pipes and flutes, but we were told of a place in a little town called Peguche (which is about 10 minutes drive from here and has a nearby waterfall) where they make and sell pipes, so we thought that would be more fun and more authentic.

We took the bus to Peguche and got out at the main plaza. Just as we jumped off the bus, who should pull up in their car but a couple from our congregation who had come to Peguche to visit a local weaving workshop. So we decided to join forces and we would check out the textiles with them, and they would come to the pipe place with us.

Just across from the plaza in Peguche is the weaving workshop of a man named Jose Cotacachi (just like the town of the same name not far from here).

He has a loom which he works by hand, and makes amazing wall hangings.

 

He doesn’t consult a pattern or any instructions; he just seems to know what he is doing. He does different colour schemes with the same design, and he already had a completed version of what he was working on displayed on the wall for sale.

After checking out his workshop, we walked down to the pipe workshop. The couple we were with had been there before, so we followed them.

This is the front of the workshop.  The sign translates to :   “Welcome. Workshop of Andean instruments. Nanda Mañachi. Exhibition with traditional music. Wholesale and retail.”

We walked down a driveway to one side of the workshop and into the back area where all the action was happening.

The pipes are made from bamboo, and we didn’t find out why these were lying on the ground, but they looked like they may have been from old pipes pulled apart.

We could hear music, and saw a young man playing a rather unusual-looking instrument, which he said was a harp. Not like any harp I’ve ever seen!

 

A woman there welcomed us and said she would demonstrate the various instruments for us. She asked if we spoke Spanish and we said “un pocotito”, which is even smaller than “un poco“ or “un pocito”!!

But it was fairly self-explanatory, and we got the general idea.

Displayed on the wall were pipes from various South American countries and areas of Ecuador.

The brightly coloured instruments in the left hand corner and hanging up near the bottom make a sound like rain falling

 

Here the lady is first demonstrating one of the instruments that sounds like rain falling, and the next instrument she said was for communication, like a telephone!  Although I suspect that most people nowadays use their mobile phones!

 

We found out that the double pipes played in the video above are not actually called pan pipes but are called “zampoña”. The pipes set in a single row are pan pipes.

There were a variety of pipes and instruments for sale.

 

This rather weird-looking creature/instrument is a reproduction of a pre-Columbian instrument used especially for funerals. We decided to buy one. We found out it is made of ceramic when the lady dropped one as she was putting it into a bag for us!

 

This is a demonstration of how to play it.

After a fun visit, and having bought the above-mentioned weird instrument and  pipes for our friend in Aus, we walked back to our starting point near the plaza.

There was another textile shop which we had walked past on the way to the pipe workshop, and this time we went in. I think this may be the main outlet for the weaver Jose Cotacachi, as there were many more woven wall hangings of all colours and designs, and all sorts of other textiles for sale.

If you like textiles of all sorts, this is the place to come! And bring lots of cash!

One wall hanging caught my eye, (actually, just about everything caught my eye!) so we brought it home with us and it now decorates one of our walls.

It’s all woven on the loom, except for the ponytails of the women which are attached as a 3-D detail. It’s just like how the indigenous women in Otavalo do their hair – a multi-coloured ribbon wrapped round and round their ponytail. It’s called a “wonga” in Quichua, although I’m not sure of the correct spelling.

After that, we went for a drive to a nearby lookout with views over Otavalo and surrounding areas.

This is overlooking Otavalo.  We live the other side of the eucalyptus trees to the right.