white hat and white braids

white hat and white braids,

a vendor smiles at white papas

and red camotes

This is the first woman I have seen in Peru with white hair, though her smooth face gives her an ageless appearance. She is wearing a traditional sombrero de paja, a tall straw hat. These tightly woven hats may take a month to weave and can cost as much as a farmer makes in a year. She is selling several kinds of potatoes, white, red, yellow, orange, sweet, even a strange little gray variety. The Andeans still grow several hundred varieties of potatoes.