A Travel Diary
By Nkuli Mlangeni
Between January and April 2016, I travelled to South America, making some stops in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. I am in love with tradition textiles and South America has some of the best weaving techniques. I am also fascinated by the similarities between Latin America and the Africa continent and wanted to learn more.
I wanted to explore the world of textiles, shamanism and get to know about the culture. I travelled there with my six-year-old daughter and it was a really cool experience for both of us, she got to learn some Spanish and other life lessons, which, I believe, she would never get in school. Lima, Peru, was our favourite city. I found that i'ts very similar to Johannesburg but much bigger and taxi drivers go even faster.
I also spent some time in a village called Sibundoy in Colombia very close to the Amazon and there I got to spend time with a local shaman and it was very interesting to learn about the different plants they use for healing, their traditional ceremonies and rituals.
I fell in love with the traditional attire that the indigenous women wear. I drank too much Pisco sour, the local cocktail made out of pisco, egg white and lime. And I was blown away by Machu Pichu city that the Inca people built many many centuries ago.
Africa can learn a lot from South America and vice versa and I think more exchange needs to happen between the two. It is also cool that one doesn't need any visa to visit most of the countries there and it's way more affordable and accessible than Europe. I am very humbled by the experience and If I could I would do it all over again.
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Nkuli Mlangeni is a maker of things originally from Johannesburg but currently moving around between Johannesburg, Cape Town, Switzerland other places. She is a compulsive traveller, the founder of The Ninevites and mother to six-year-old Imitha. She’s worked on several creative projects both in Cape Town and Johannesburg as a curator and project manager and currently finishing her studies in social innovation at the Kaospilots school in Europe.