Please contact us for specific information. Note that the price depends on the group size; the bigger the group the lower the price per person.
The best textile museums in Lima, the largest plant for the collection and processing of alpaca fiber, an alpaca-breeding ranch in the highlands, a chaco of Vicuñas, Andean communities with rich textile traditions, and many other destinations with breathtaking landscapes and interesting historical and cultural legacies, such as Titicaca Lake, Cusco, Machu Picchu and the Colca Canyon.
For traditional textile enthusiasts and travellers interested in Andean camelids. This program adjusts itself to any person, regardless of age and physical condition. Bear in mind that we will reach altitudes beyond 4000 m.a.s.l, and some sections will require long drives.
Michell & Co, today’s largest Alpaca and Vicuña fiber manufacturer, is linked to Frank W. Michell, a British Royal Air Force pilot, who came to Peru at the beginning of the 1920’s, looking for Chinchilla fur, but soon after his arrival, he encountered a special animal, the Alpaca, a gracious South American cameloid, which fiber is worldwide priced for its silkiness, colours, softness, durability, thermal properties and rareness.
Tanit Trails, in partnership with Michell & Co, has designed this program thinking in the traveler who has a specific interest in Alpacas. This tour will lead you to explore Peru from a different angle, through the backbone of the Andean world. You will live to understand why Alpacas and Vicuñas are the secret to sustainability in the Andean world and have provided for the building of the world’s most important Antique Textile Heritage.
Among other activities, you will ride and walk through herds of alpacas in their natural habitat and visit the world´s largest plant for the collection and processing of alpaca fiber. You will participate in a chaco of Vicuñas, traditional method of gathering these semi-wild camelids to shear them, which is accompanied by a ´pago´ or ritual the Andean population performs to thank mother earth for blessing them with this valuable natural resource.
Given that textile work is the oldest artistic expression ever developed in Peru, and one of the oldest in the world, and considering the value of textiles in ancientPeru was such, the first gifts the Incas gave to the Spaniards were not of gold but of camelids’ fiber and cotton,
we have included visits to places and communities that will enable you to learn and closely appreciate this millenial history, one that not only belongs to the past, but has remained as an expression of the present culture.
You cannot leave out those natural and cultural attractions that make Peru a must-see country: Machu Picchu, the Colca canyon and Lake Titicaca are just some of these wonders.