The Craft Workshops of Catacaos

Catacaos is a low town of adobe and brick in the Piura desert, and its trade is craft. Along Calle Comercio the workshops make silver filigree: wire drawn to the thickness of a hair, coiled into scrollwork and soldered into earrings, brooches and rosaries, a technique that arrived with Spain and stayed. The other speciality is hats woven from toquilla palm straw, the best of them so tightly worked that they hold their shape and shed water. Alongside these are carved chonta wood, ceramics and cotton weaving. The town also keeps a strong picantería tradition, with houses selling chicha marked by a white flag on a pole.

What you actually see

• Silver filigree - hair-fine wire coiled and soldered into jewellery in open workshops.
• Straw hats - toquilla palm woven at grades from coarse to extremely fine.
• Calle Comercio - the long craft street where most of the trade happens.
• The white flags - houses serving chicha, marking the local picantería custom.

When to go

Year-round, but the timing within the day matters more than the season: it is fiercely hot in the Piura desert and the street empties in the early afternoon. Mornings are for buying, Sundays are for eating, when families come out from Piura and the food houses are busiest. Holy Week is the town's biggest event and the busiest week of the year.

Honest expectations

Quality varies enormously and the difference is not obvious. A lot of the silver laid out on the front tables is machine-made or brought in and sold as local, and the gap between a hat woven in two days and one woven over two months is easy to miss and reflected in the price. It is very hot, shade is scarce, and the town itself is plain.

Nearby

Piura city, the Sechura desert and the beaches of the far north coast.