![]() ![]() ![]() We collect the huarango tree seeds and boil them to get a dark liquid, which is a perfect natural leather tanner,” Yamberla explained as he showed me around the family workshop. Unlike other leather artisans in the Imbabura Province, Yamberla buys his raw hides from local farmers instead of wholesale sellers, refuses to use chemicals and prefers an ancient highland recipe. “Now, most of the leather, already processed, arrives from the nearby town of Ambato or as far as Colombia to save costs,” Yamberla told me. This town has been making leather products for hundreds of years, largely because of the surrounding cattle and dairy farms that used to be a primary source of raw hides. Beautifully decorated saddles and bridles, jackets, bags and purses, souvenirs and shoes – in Cotacachi, leather is everywhere. As Yamberla and his father, Luis Sr, busied themselves in the workshop, Yamberla’s mother Maria Virginia offered me some of her homemade chicha, a drink made of fermented corn and wheat, then carried on brushing a sheepskin and chatting to her granddaughters and nieces in her native Quichua.Ĭotacachi, a small, quiet mountain town in Ecuador’s Imbabura Province, is famous for its leather artisans who offer various items around the plaza de armas (main square) and in the surrounding streets, kiosks, stalls and shops. Stacked and covered in salt, steeping in lime or tanning in a large barrel, the skins and hides were being worked on with simple tools: a smooth stone to scrape the remaining meat from a raw hide stone and wood barrels to hold and process the skins. Out in the spacious back yard, cowhides, llama pelts and goat skins were in various stages of processing. A strong smell of salt, leather and wet fur permeated the tiny workshop where Luis Yamberla Cacuango was busy working on an intricate leather belt pattern.
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