Alpaca Clothing Shopping Tips for Cusco, Peru, Cusco, Peru (B)

If you visit Cusco, Peru the first thing you will notice is nearly every shop and street vendor is selling “baby alpaca” sweaters. The second thing you will likely notice is that nearly none of these vendors are actually selling “baby alpaca” sweaters. (As the locals say its “maybe alpaca.” Ha!)

Baby alpaca wool is the wool used when a baby alpaca gets its very first haircut. It is INSANELY soft. You can tell if a sweater is genuine baby alpaca wool because when you touch it, the fabric will be VERY soft and VERY tightly woven (no holes whatsoever). Real alpaca wool is also cool to the touch. 

99.9% of the sweaters you’ll see will have holes and be loosely woven, and not cold to the touch..which means it’s likely a synthetic blend with alpaca wool (or entirely synthetic). This is fine, as long as the prices are appropriate. Real baby alpaca sweaters will cost hundreds and hundreds of USD. Whereas old alpaca or synthetic blends are going to cost about 25-50 soles. ($7-$15 USD) ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).