From Catamarca with Roses

Argentina evokes the faded charm of Buenos Aires impregnated with languid tango music and dancing, but there is more to it in this vast country nearly as large as a continent. The Andean provinces of the far North West are a world apart. In the crisp air of the mountain villages and small towns the indigenous Indian culture seems to have survived more easily than in the Eastern plains.  

© http://www.turismo.catamarca.gob.ar

I strolled for hours along the stands and shops in Catamarca’s Mercado artesanal. The town lives up to its sonorous name San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca. Here you won’t find mass products for the tourist market. Every single item is handmade, intricately embroidered, carved, etched or chiselled. 

© http://www.turismo.catamarca.gob.ar

A lovely silver ring with a rhodochrosite, the locally mined rose coloured gem stone and an embroidered shawl were vying for my attention. On that chilly day in late autumn the shawl won. Finely stitched roses are blooming on tightly woven Bordeaux red wool. The flat pass is done with woollen threads in different shades of beige and brown. I imagine the ladies of yesteryear putting on their shawls and their silver jewellery for churchgoing. Every Esmeralda and Juanita would throw a quick glance at her neighbour if she even had a more delicately embroidered shawl on her shoulders. Nowadays we may rather go to a vernissage or a concert but the competition is still on.