Campo style

Cajabamba's an interesting town, because while it's big enough (relatively speaking) to have urban comforts like internet, electricity, and running water, it's smack in the middle of Cajamarca's agricultural heartland. This means that although residents of the town itself tend to wear jeans and sneakers, half the people walking down Cajabamba's streets are campo farmers who still keep to the traditional dress of the sierra. 

Campo men are easily identified by their ever-present baseball caps and sandals made from recycled tire rubber, called yanquis or ojotas. The campesinos wear these simple yet hardy shoes through thick and thin, and in every kind of weather. 

The women's version of the sandals comes with a little rubber flower attached to the top strap, but the ladies split their footwear choices between the sandals and a basic black loafer (which also looks like it's made out of recycled tires). Although the shoes are much the same, the rest of the woman's traditional outfit is much more eye-catching than their male counterparts'. 

Peruvian campesinas are not afraid to sport beautiful and bright colors - a single outfit is often composed of various vibrant hues that the fashion police might not call complementary, but somehow it works. The traditional campo ensemble includes: a pleated skirt, with an underskirt fringe peeking out under the bottom hem, a button-down blouse, a hand-knit cardigan sweater, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a wool blanket draped over the shoulders. Those blankets are one of the most multi-purpose tools I've ever seen: the señoras use them to cover their legs for warmth, to fold and sit atop when the ground is uncomfortable, and to carry everything from babies to alfalfa.

It's crazy how heavy of loads these ladies can stuff into their blankets and still walk up mountains!

But if I had to pick one item that defines the campo wardrobe, it'd definitely be the hats. While more common in women (since men now have the baseball cap option), men sometimes wear the wide-brimmed straw as well. I love these hats for many reasons. For one, they are a mark of the community - although campesinos in other mountain regions of Peru also wear straw hats, the shape and color varies. The hats are also a manifestation of pride in being a serrano (mountain) farmer: one hat costs between 300 and 1,000 soles! At an equivalent of $110-$365, you might not bat an eye, but when you're a rural subsistence farmer make a living off selling vegetables at S/.1 per kilo, even 300 soles is an incredible investment. Consequently, these hats are prized possessions, worn daily from sun-up to sundown. Although it cracks me up that the campesinas won't remove them even when they're blocking neighbors' views in meetings or knocking seat-mates ears in crowded combis, I'm glad that the hats remain an integral symbol of Cajabamba's campo community.