The last purchase was in 2019, so I came to Peru in South America after 4 years.
This time, I visited to say hello to the owner of the alpaca room shoes that are sold at Pisac, and to take pictures of the alpaca farm and the production process.

Where alpacas live

We were taken to an alpaca farm managed by the owner's brother.
I went to an alpaca farm in Pitumarca, which is about a two-hour drive south of Pisac, which will be my base for this trip.

Natural color alpaca

Most of the alpaca room shoes we sell are "natural colors", and we use the color of the alpaca's own hair without dyeing the hair. According to the owner, there are 24 different colored alpacas.

The difficulty of cutting hair

I never thought that shearing hair would be so difficult.
This is because the work of catching alpacas was difficult. Several people corral the alpacas and drive them towards the edge.
The alpacas are also desperately trying to escape, so even though we keep them enclosed, some of them end up running away.

After driving it to the edge, grab the alpaca at once and knock it to the side.
In order to free the alpaca as quickly as possible, we quickly cut the whole thing. Once one side is finished, flip it over and cut the other side in the same way.
By the way, adult alpacas should be cut once every two years, and baby alpacas should be cut once a year.

Harvested raw alpaca wool needs to be sorted.

This time, I was able to shear the hair of a 5kg black alpaca.
Alpacas vary in thickness, length, impurities, etc. depending on the environment in which they are grown, the species, and whether they are children or adults, so we sort them, use clean alpaca hair, and start making room shoes. Masu.

Next time, I will update about the production process.