Step inside Cuenca's workshops—and meet the artisans keeping traditions alive

“They call this the Red City,” says my guide, Cristian Encalada. From where we’re standing, at the Turi viewpoint in the south of the city, I can see why. Cuenca — the capital of Azuay province, in southern Ecuador — spreads out below us like a vermilion pool in a basin between Andean peaks. The red hue comes from terracotta tiles, a Spanish colonial feature that must be regularly maintained: the city’s World Heritage status depends on it.

There’s a local terracotta industry, Cristian says. I’ve noticed everyone in Azuay seems to know a craft like this, which Cristian ascribes to a natural abundance of clay, precious metals and hardwoods. The artisanal heritage is visible across Cuenca: in carved church doorways; in looping wrought-iron railings; even on the electricity boxes, which artist Roberto Bravo has painted with portraits of chola mestizas. These women, who have mixed Indigenous and Spanish heritage but wear Indigenous dress, have made the once-derogatory Spanish term chola a badge of honour.

Just east of Cuenca is a row of artisanal towns, of which the most prominent are Gualaceo, Chordeleg and San Bartolomé. Each is known for a specific trade; you’ll meet entire families of weavers, ceramicists and luthiers (specialists in Ecuador’s stringed instruments), who have passed down their craft over generations.

Cristian’s father, grandfather and uncles are jewellers, and Cristian learned the craft from his father in childhood. They emigrated to the US in 1989. Cristian returned in 2008, though most of his family remains abroad. It’s a familiar story. A series of economic crises in the late 20th century triggered waves of migration: craftspeople left, ostensibly to sell their wares, and never returned. As the economy stabilised in the 2000s, emigration slowed. Now, an encouraging number of younger people are staying to continue the family business; many are opening up their studios to travellers, in the hope that tourism can help preserve these crafts for generations to come. Here are some of the regional specialities and their makers.

Panama hats: Homero Ortega

Contrary to popular belief, the Panama hat originated in the coastal Ecuadorian province of Manabí in the late 18th century. In Ecuador, they’re called paja toquilla hats after the fan-shaped native toquilla plant whose straw they are made from. When southern Ecuador was hit by economic depression in the 1830s, the mayor of Azogues, a town north east of Cuenca, ordered the creation of vocational workshops. Soon, Azuay and neighbouring Cañar province overtook Manabí as Ecuador’s centre of hat production, employing around 250,000 people. Among them were the Ortega family and, in 1972, fifth-generation weaver Homero Ortega established his eponymous hat company in Cuenca.

Today, it’s run by three of his children — Alicia, Homero and Gladys — who buy semi-finished hats from weavers in the countryside. These are brought to the factory, where workers press around 500 hats a day, then dye and band them. It’s a process you can see for yourself, as the factory is open to visitors. There’s a museum narrating the history of paja toquilla hats, and a shop selling both the classics and the latest trends, as well as straw bags and fascinators. “We have more than 89 styles,” says Alicia Ortega. “But the Panama hat is the bestseller.” A standard woven hat takes one to two days to produce; the finest, most intricate double-weave takes eight months.

Ceramics: La Familia Encalada

In a century-old adobe home in the Convención del 45 neighbourhood of Cuenca, 90-year-old José Encalada creates clay pots, bowls, vases and more, surrounded by 15 ceramicist family members, dogs, tweeting budgies — and a whole host of awards. Many of the family teach ceramics, and the home is open to long-term students and day-trippers for a spin of the wheel. The kiln is fired up once a week to bake any creations that travellers have made and want to take home with them. “I wanted to open doors for everybody, to show them the essence of the ceramics worker,” says José. “My purpose is to teach the children.”

His children and grandchildren have broadened into other disciplines and styles: Indigenous-inspired wall art, black clay tableware and animal-themed mugs. “Ceramics is an infinite craft; you can never say you’ve finished it,” says José. One piece might have been worked on by multiple generations, with the youngest member adding little flowers to a ceramic house, for example. The shop might be neat, but the studio is delightfully cluttered with old pots and machines: a living museum.

Weaving: Tejidos Ikat Jiménez

Ikat weaving in Ecuador originated with the pre-Inca Cañari people. The technique involves tying knots of agave-like fibre around strands of cotton or wool before dyeing them, to leave blurry white shapes. Master weavers, such as 65-year-old José Jiménez, can make the shapes of hummingbirds or even chola mestizas with this method. At his two-storey studio, ikat museum and shop in Gualaceo, a 16th-century town 15 miles east of Cuenca, José weaves sat on the floor, using a traditional waist loom. His wife, Ana María Ulloa, adds complex macramé embellishments such as birds or coats of arms.

Weaving one shawl can take José three days. “Big companies make metres and metres of cloth, but I’m proud to rescue our traditions,” he says. “My children have learned as well, which is wonderful.” To promote their work, the family visit craft fairs across Ecuador and neighbouring Peru. “I invite everyone to visit us, so that this craft is maintained,” says José. “It makes me proud that people take our art with them, because our fingerprints are there.”

Silver filigree: Flavio Jara

Ten minutes’ drive south of Gualaceo is the town of Chordeleg, where seemingly every second shop is a jewellers. Artisans here specialise in silver filigree — and few are more highly regarded than Flavio Jara. Flavio learned the craft from his father and, even at 71 years old, displays remarkable strength and dexterity. To make filigree wire, he melts silver pellets in a crucible heated to 960C, then pours it into a mould to make bars. Each bar is then pressed through a rolling mill until it’s up to six metres long and as thin as a pencil lead. Finally, he pulls it by hand through the progressively smaller holes of a steel drawplate, until it’s as thin as 0.26mm. In his tiny, dimly lit studio, travellers can watch as he combines it with thicker silver wire shapes, looping and twisting the filigree until the frame is filled in.

He crafts everything from flowers to butterflies, and says his bestsellers are candongas: the jangling hoop earrings of chola mestizas. The candonga is a symbol of the town; it’s said that the clanking sound announces the woman’s beauty.

Clay figurines: Fernando Loja & Rosa Guzman

Thirty-four years ago, Rosa Guzman and her husband Fernando Loja were resisting becoming Azuay’s latest economic emigrants; to make ends meet, they started crafting clay figurines inspired by Andean traditions. “The culture we have here is infinite,” says Rosa. “But because of migration, traditional games and clothing were disappearing.” With no easy access to supplies, they had to improvise: they ground pigments from cobalt and copper, and used their own hair to make brushes. Their lives changed when a local historian commissioned a tableau of the colonial conquest of Ecuador, with 2,000 figurines. “We carved all the faces manually; we hadn’t even thought of using moulds,” says Rosa.

Today they work with a wider range of materials in their studio at Chaurizhin, a scattering of bungalows next to Chordeleg. The space overflows with colourful figurines in ponchos and straw hats. Some sit down to a traditional communal pambamesa meal, while others sell roasted guinea pigs at market, or dance at the Inca sun festival of Inti Raymi. Andean games also feature, with child figurines trying to break ceramic pots or climb a greasy pole to get gifts. Fernando and Rosa’s two children now craft figures in the same style, ensuring their legacy endures. “This trade hasn’t been passed down to us,” says Rosa. “We are the beginning.”

Guitars: Guitarras Uyaguari

In the red-roofed rural parish of San Bartolomé, 14 miles east of Cuenca, is La Ruta de las Guitarras (The Guitar Route). At this row of boutique workshops, a guitar-making tradition has endured for more than 200 years. Initially introduced by Spanish colonists, guitars became an essential part of Andean music; San Bartolomé luthiers profited thanks to an abundance of hardwoods in the region. One of the main studios is Guitarras Uyaguari: second-generation luthier José Homero Uyaguari and four of his sons craft guitars from native woods such as chonta (black palm), which makes a particularly durable fretboard. Only the strings and machine heads are imported — the guitar bridge and nut are made from cow shin bone rather than plastic.

What distinguishes the guitars are their detailed sound hole rosettes, which can take a whole day to complete. Some are made from tiny, dyed pumamaqui wood shards, arranged row by row to form patterns like woven cloth. Premium rosettes are crafted from mother-of-pearl shells. The luthiers also make charangos, a 10-stringed Andean instrument similar to a lute. José once sold a guitar to Spanish singer Enrique Bunbury, a matter of some pride. After browsing the shop and watching him make rosettes in the atelier, you might be tempted to become his latest customer.