Finally, here are some pictures of my Chilean purchases for you to drool over. The trip itself was really hard work as I got ill on the plane going out and this continued all through our boat trip to the Antarctic Peninsula (no, we weren't on the boat the sank, although the one we were on has just had to be towed back to Ushuaia after hitting an iceberg!). Nevertheless, there is nothing like the landscape of Antarctica; after 8 days of blue-white ice and penguins I was surprisingly grateful for the browns and greens of Chile and the warmth of the Atacama Desert. We visited a craft village in Pomaire, an hour or so's drive out of Santiago, where I bought the piece of felt shown above. And in San Pedro de Atacama I found the hats and glittens and also the rope which I think is for lassoing your llama... The ear flap hat is fully reversible and beautifully made. Most of the knitting appears to be of this type, two or more colours using llama wool and often in natural dyes of brown and cream. Unfortunately I did very little knitting on my trip due to feeling so unwell although I did get out my bamboo needles on the journey home without any difficulty. Now I'm working on another lace scarf from Donna Druchunas' Alaskan book which I'll preview next time.
