![]() ![]() His cheaper instruments cost around $70 to $200 (£50 to £150), whereas a more exquisite guitar made from expensive wood may cost $2,000 (£1,500) and upwards. Some of the ornaments are made of bovine bones.įrom sanding and prepping the wood to a complete finish, it takes Uyaguari about two weeks to make one guitar. Next, the luthier works with chisels, saws and sandpaper to craft the frame and the neck of the guitar, decorating the sound hole with tiny wood fragments coloured by hand. Three of them already make guitars and work together with me," Uyaguari said.Īll of Uyaguari's instruments are made by hand. Now, it's my trade, and I'm hoping to pass it down to my sons. "I began learning to make guitars when I was 13 years old. Although there are some women guitar makers in San Bartolome, for the most part, it is the dominion of men. It's a tradition passed down from father to son," he said. "As a child, I remember some of the guitar masters were 70, 80 years old, and they'd tell us they learned from their fathers, too. Most of our walnut comes from right here, from our neighbours, and sometimes, we get things like armadillo shells from the rainforest – it's good for making smaller instruments, and people love the unusual finish."Īs he showed me around the workshop, Uyaguari told me he learned the art of guitar making from his father – who, in turn, learned from his. "We use local cherry wood, walnut and cedar trees most of the time, but some of the guitars are made from imported pine. "Every guitar and charango are unique," Uyaguari explained, holding up a small charango. The tables were covered in instruments in various states of finish, sawdust, and cow bone fragments and colourful ornaments used as adornments. Inside, the walls were lined with finished guitars, charangos (small, five-stringed instruments loved by indigenous Andean musicians), ukuleles and cuatros (four-stringed guitars popular in Venezuela). "Come, come," he said, opening the doors to the workshop. While curious, I didn't want to intrude: the Guitar Route is far from a touristy place.īut Uyaguari nodded and ushered me inside. Parking my rental motorcycle on the side of the road, I tentatively asked if I could visit the workshop. It belonged to Jose Homero Uyaguari, one of San Bartolome's most renowned guitar makers. Intrigued, I stopped by one of the guitar workshops: a typical tin-roofed Andean house with wooden walls, but with a guitar displayed above the entrance. Luthiers along the Guitar Road are known for crafting guitars so exquisite that their clients include musicians across South America, the Caribbean and North America. Locals craft the instruments from the area's cedar, spruce and cherry trees, as well as from more exotic materials like armadillo shells. Just a few more miles up the road, a makeshift wooden sign declared this was the "Ruta de las Guitarras" – the Guitar Route.įor more than 200 years, the tradition of guitar-making has been strong in this region. Sometimes, it was someone's house with a guitar frame hung outside sometimes, a bigger workshop with instruments lined up on the porch or displayed on tables. Here and there, a small workshop appeared, bearing a sign of a guitar. Gone are Cuenca's busy streets and trendy cafes, replaced by sparse, tiny indigenous settlements, animal pastures and a mountain landscape weighed down by heavy clouds and undisturbed silence.Īs I entered the San Bartolome parish, home to a little more than 4,000 inhabitants, I started noticing something odd on the sides of the road. With its villages few and far between, Via San Bartolome slowly unfurls across the eastern slopes of the Andes for 80km, merging with a network of other local roads leading down into the Amazon plains. Soon, I found myself on the Via San Bartolome, a quiet, remote road with solitude and views unspoiled by human activity.
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