I've been enjoying all the small luthier shops around this area... this afternoon / evening we were walking through the San Blas area, and found another one.
Marimacho - a 16 stringed instrument with 4 courses
This luthier has all sorts of instruments, but the one which impressed me the most is a 16 string variant of the Bandurria with 4 courses (4 strings in each course) which the luthier calls the "Marimacho", seen above.
Apparently this variant is native to the Cusco area. This particular one is tuned the same as I tune my 6 string baritone ukulele (DGBE) so I could just pick it up and play it. The sound is very rich, with lots of overtones.
16 strings in 4 courses
Here's a Youtube video that I found showing the Marimacho in use - I am not sure if this is the same luthier or not (I didn't catch his name - given my lack of Spanish and his lack of English all communication was via Monica), but it does look like him, and the building style seems similar.
Some other instruments he has in his shop include some charangos, mandolins, guitars, a harp, etc.
A finished Charango
Terran holding an unfinished Charango
It was pretty cool to see a charango in progress - it is carved out of a single chunk of wood:
Monday morning we said good bye to our nice home in Cusco, and headed to Urubamba. We walked down to the paradero, and took a "colectivo" (a large 20 person van), paid our 6 soles/per person, and rode for about an hour and a half to the town of Urubamba. According to Wikipedia, Urubamaba or Urupampa in the Quechua spelling means "flat land of spiders"....poor Maija. (We didn't tell her yet... she can wait until we leave or she reads this blog post to find out). The Sacred Valley is much warmer than Cusco, and is full of flowers. A beautiful little town
For our last Saturday here in Arequipa we decided to visit the Santa Catalina Convent. The convent is located in the historic center of Arequipa and it is considered the most important and impressive colonial structure in the city. Constructed from Sillar, a white volcanic stone quarried locally, the convent was founded in 1579, and is truly a city within a city. The nuns constructed private cells within the convent where they could lead isolated lives, protected by high walls sheltering them from the surrounding city. Most museums, or tourist sites here in Peru encourage you to have a guide, normally we prefer to do it without one, but this structure was so large, and with so much history, that I am glad we opted to have a guide show us the place. One of the many alleys within the Convent. Each street within the convent is named after a Spanish city, I think this one might have been Malaga.
So, after I went to Rainbow Mountain on Saturday, I have a few things to say about it.Pretty, and painful. If you wanted to do it while you are in Cusco, I would suggest it only if you are a strong hiker, and if you are an intermediate hiker, I would suggest getting to the first summit and sucking on Coca leaves. Maybe get help from horses, it pays off with the view at the first summit. My dad made it to the 2nd summit. The hike down is easy and it has a good view. You see a valley with random alpacas dotting the green grass. The alpacas are fairly tame, but will still run away if you approach them too fast. Some fun facts about this Mountain are: 1. Another name for Rainbow Mountain is Vinicunca. 2. When you are on the first summit of the Mountain you are closer to the Mount Everest summit than you are to Calgary. 3.There is snow on a mountain close to Vinicunca. The roads on the second half of the way there are the scariest roads ever. And we were in a bus. A BIG bus.
These are cool! You took notes? ;)
ReplyDeleteSo neat! Can’t wait to see Wyatt make one! Björn is drooling over here!
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