📸 Photo

known all over Latin America for its beauty and fine quality, and it's done exclusively by the men, though the women spin and dye the wool.

The island is a kind of commune of about fifty families managed by a community council. Life is tranquil. The men sit about doing their embroidery and gossiping, while the women toil in the fields. The rocky soil is difficult to cultivate and nothing grows there except potatoes. In the village itself are a small grocery and two or three restaurants. In one of them Marcus and I met the French group from the boat.

There were five of them, three girls – Dede, Annick, and Jacqueline – and two boys – Jacques and Michel. We drank the local maté (herb tea; there are many varieties served all over Latin America) and chatted. They preferred speaking French, and I didn't understand a word, but Dede smiled at me, and I smiled back. She was on the plump side with a pretty face and short hair that gave her a mischievous look. She smiled again, and I asked her to come sit by me and began speaking English with her.

The dinner was delicious: coarse bread, two eggs apiece, and fried potatoes. For dessert another cup of maté; the natives think it alleviates the effects of high altitude. Then home. A mochilero changes beds almost every night, but every place he rolls his sleeping bag open is home.

Marcus and I went back to our room. He unpacked his charango (a small musical instrument