Artwork modeled on the historic Andean khipu (aka quipu), which used knots as a record-keeping system. This was seen in the Sulca Textile House Museum near Cusco.

Further, the Incas imposed a labor-based tax system, meaning residents paid taxes with the labor most valued by their overlords. For some, that meant weaving textiles and producing cloth.
Textile center
Fast forward to the 21st century: On my recent Peru trip, I traveled with journalists as a guest of the Inkaterra hotel group. We visited a textile center that straddles the Cusco-Pisac highway about 30-35 minutes from the heart of Cusco.
The textile complex, which boasts some seriously high-end goods, is home to a handful of textile businesses. We visited two.
• The Manos de la Comunidad is a commune of some 30 to 40 weavers.
The commune keeps animals (all the camelids — alpacas, guanacos, llamas and vicunas) on site for visitor viewing, and even for photos with the animals — well, there were no photos with the wild vicunas. Many of these species provide fleece for weaving.

Guanacos greeting new arrivals at the Manos de la Comunidad, a weavers commune outside of Cusco.

We watched spinners and weavers, men and women, at their work. A host provided a short lecture about making dyes. For a further touristy touch, a few costumed musicians welcomed us. By this point, thoughts of Disneyland were traipsing across my mind.

Above, a weaver at the Manos de la Comunidad commune, showing how it is done, for the benefit of tourists. Below, musicians at the commune.

But, once I was in the showrooms, it became clear this was no chintzy tourist stop. Displays included countless woven items, generally wall hangings, but also rugs, scarves and masks. Many tapestry designs were inspired by or even outright copied from traditional patterns.

Above, on-site host at the Manos de la Comunidad displaying a handmade rug that features a traditional Inca design. Below, a tapestry, a modern take on old themes, hanging inside the commune showrooms.

Then, there were the modern, even rather edgy, designs that nevertheless reflected precolonial influences. Their colors were vivid and the creativity eye popping.
• The Sulca Textile House Museum, created by the Sulca family, is across the highway from the commune.
Our guide said the Sulca business creates its products in Ayacucho while the Cusco site is a place for exhibiting and selling the goods.
The work is meant to preserve an old culture. The Sulca business uses traditional methods of production for its products, our guide said, and weavers often replicate precolonial designs. The museum displays both historical tapestries and some of Sulca’s own finest pieces.

Above and below, weavings that copy precolonial patterns, seen inside the Sulca Textile House Museum. It seems the Inca squares are everywhere.

We watched and photographed three women demonstrating backstrap weaving, but Sulca’s large demo looms were silent when we visited. Corrals accommodate camelids here, as well.

Backstrap weaving on the grounds of the Sulca Textile House Museum.

For me, the textiles made for a great show, but I did not buy. I already have two Peruvian tapestries, and my walls cannot take more. Other shopping options included wool clothing — a fellow traveler bought coats of baby alpaca fleece.

One of my Peruvian tapestries, called “The Banquet.”

Machu Picchu
Other shopping options may be easier to access — depending on one’s itinerary.
During this recent Peru visit, I spent a day in Machu Picchu Pueblo, the small tourist town (population 6,000) that is the starting point for all the up-the-mountainside, down-the-mountainside bus trips to and from the Machu Picchu archaeological site.
I see that, in an earlier diary, I had dismissed the settlement as barely worth noting. But I don’t dismiss it anymore.
Machu Picchu Pueblo’s public spaces — a main square with the de rigueur church and city hall, plus promenades on either side of the Aguas Calientes River that slices through the middle — were a pleasant surprise. And I relished buying small gifts in a large outdoor artisans market created just for out-of-towners like me.

Above, a small section of the sizeable artisans market next to the train station in Machu Picchu Pueblo. This merchant emphasized woven goods and hats. Below, the main square in Machu Picchu Pueblo.

Pisac, Ollantaytambo
In 2011, I had access to colorful rows of stalls in Pisac, still one of Peru’s better-known market towns. It is in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, meaning in the valley of the Urubamba River. It’s billed as a market town where locals come to buy, sell and barter goods, but the tourist element was quite big here.

Above and below, a wide array of woven and other goods on offer to visiting shoppers in Pisac, Peru’s popular market town (2011 photos).

Ditto for the rows of stalls at Ollantaytambo. Just FYI, while the shopping opportunity at Ollantaytambo is substantial, the key touristic reason for a visit is to view the town’s Inca-era Temple of the Sun and Terrace of the Ten Niches, situated on mountainsides and overlooking the market and the rest of the town. Oh, and there are terraces all over the mountains, too.

Ollantaytambo, the town, its market (roofs seen at center foreground) and the valley where it sits, as viewed from mountainside terraces. The Ten Niches are barely visible in the upper lefthand corner (2011 photo).

One final thing to share, mainly because it amused me so much: In 2025, while in Cusco, local merchants were quite eager to do business, sometimes on the street rather than in shops. One woman, with goods draped over her arm, walked behind me, urging me to have a look. She advised that she would accept American Express.
For more information about Peru, we offer at BestTripChoices.com the following, under the headline, Land of Machu Picchu at https://besttripchoices.com/peru/
This blog and its photos are by Nadine Godwin, BestTripChoices.com editorial director and contributor to the trade newspaper, Travel Weekly. She also is the author of “Travia: The Ultimate Book of Travel Trivia.”

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I am taken with the fact we humans treat architectural blank spaces like vacuums, filling them with artwork or just frilly trimmings. Some “solutions” to the unused space are quite involved, extending beyond painted murals to tilework, mosaics, frescoes and sgraffito.

Whereas murals range from the most rustic (starting with graffiti that has flair) to the carefully planned and executed trompe l’oeil.

I have many photos from all categories, around 1,500 total — way more than I would have guessed. Therefore, I am limiting today’s “art exhibit” to those photos whose filenames include “WallArt” or “Mural,” which are essentially the same, plus a subset with “Trompe” in the filename.

I have leaned heavily on murals in a previous posting featuring Ajijic in Mexico (https://besttripchoices.com/ajijic-mexico-and-its-paint-jobs/) and did the same, to a lesser extent, in a Rio de Janeiro blog here: https://besttripchoices.com/rio-de-janeiro-carnival-town-olympic-city/, so I’m traveling elsewhere during this exercise.

But I am starting in South America. There is more of the fantastical or mythological in the South American examples than the North American or European, or at least that is true of my photo collection. A tiny selection of my photos follows. I don’t know how many of these paintings no longer exist; therefore, all photos are dated to indicate a time when they certainly did exist.

Santiago, Chile (2017): I love that someone decided to create a takeoff on a Van Gogh painting for all to enjoy on the streets of Chile’s capital. This appeared in the edgy bohemian Barrio Bellavista, an area boasting scads of bright and imaginative murals.

Buenos Aires, Argentina (2005): Street artists assembled a ragtag collection of materials to create the appearance of activity along the rim of an apparently abandoned, or at least unused, lot. The result features amusing characters, some painted and a few as sculpted figures.

Pisac, Peru (2011): Above, part of an extensive mural in the Andean market town of Pisac, illustrating life in the region. In this section, men and women can be seen harvesting potatoes (upper right); working the land (upper left), and making pottery (lower right).

Santiago, Chile (2017): The above was one of an array of colorful images painted on the man-made embankments along the Mapocho River.

Bogota, Colombia (2012): Another setting for whimsical images, on a house in the Candelaria section at the heart of Colombia’s capital. The house sits on a street called Callejon de las Brujas, meaning Alley of the Witches.

Aberdeen, Washington (2018): This mural takes away any drabness from a parking lot. A small town, Aberdeen is known for street art, which includes, besides murals, a series of fabricated “rare and endangered species,” sculpted by some very imaginative artists.

Billings, Montana (2013): A cheery mural celebrating local child care services

Astoria, Oregon (2018): The above is part of a considerably longer mural that decorates the old Mason, Ehrman & Co. Warehouse Building along the Columbia River on Astoria Riverwalk. This work involves some trompe l’oeil tricks: The door is real, but the dock and windows are not.

Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada (2012): A shoe seller cleverly promotes his business with a telling piece of art.

Seoul, South Korea (2014): A charming image seen on the Insadong shopping street in South Korea’s capital.

Stirling, Scotland (1997): When I visited Stirling Castle in autumn 1997, parts of the castle were under scaffolding, and the work area was surrounded by a wall covered with paintings illustrating the construction process as it might have looked when the castle was built, around the early 12th century. This photo features one of the panels.

Belgrade, Serbia (2009): Artists brightened side-by-side buildings in Serbia’s capital with these images. The figure on the right boasts a mouth full of teeth that are actually tiny buildings. And, at left, the veggie in his hand is a tree.

Palermo, Sicily, Italy (2017): An animal like I had never seen, this bright example of Sicilian street art livened my walks while approaching Palermo’s Mercato Ballaro.

Utrecht, The Netherlands (2010): A joker on a wall in the middle of this Dutch city.

And for more in the realm of optical illusions, best known by the French moniker, trompe l’oeil:

Berlin, Germany (2018): This was a fun test for my eyes, near the Hauptbahnhof (central train station) in Germany’s capital.

Dijon, France (2019): A building that seemed buttressed with ironwork was a surprise in Dijon, the town that we usually, and rightfully, associate with mustard.

Quebec City, Quebec, Canada (2005): For optical illusions, the best example in my collection is this building in Quebec. One wall is covered with images suggesting a collection of buildings of varying heights, even with trees in the background. I zoomed in for more details seen in the second photo, below.

This blog and its photos are by Nadine Godwin, BestTripChoices.com editorial director and contributor to the trade newspaper, Travel Weekly. She also is the author of “Travia: The Ultimate Book of Travel Trivia.”

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