Llusco, 39, is one of about 10 Indigenous female mountain guides in Bolivia. Her long black hair is tied in two plaits, linked with a large safety pin and wool decorations in red, yellow and green, the colours of the Bolivian flag. She is wearing a pollera, a voluminous floral skirt over layers of pink petticoats. She has paired it with a pink diamanté top, beneath a pink cardigan and a red fleece gilet. “I have never worn trousers to go up a mountain and I never will. Our polleras don’t impede us,” she says of the traditional Aymara garment.
She has been climbing Huayna Potosí for most of her life, but on 17 December 2015 she was part of a group of 11 women who made it to the summit. They called themselves the cholitas escaladoras (the climbing cholitas) and they made headlines when they scaled more peaks in the Cordillera Real. The word cholita comes from chola which was previously used as a pejorative term for indigenous Aymara women.
Huayna Potosí is one place she keeps returning to that fills her with joy. “I feel free, so happy, as if I’m escaping and the mountain is calling me. I’m also in love with nature,” she says. Minutes later, a condor, a national symbol of Bolivia and the largest bird of prey in the world, cruises overhead.
I’m glad for that, because looking at it I would be 100% terrified at that catching on something or something equally horrific in a bad scenario.
… but I’m also not a mountain climber, and I wouldn’t brave it even in trousers, so my risk assessment is definitely very different, lmao.
I’ve always preferred skirts to pants, precisely because they’re less restrictive to movement. I’m not sure why, but the comment was always, “I’m not sure you’d be able to do this while wearing a skirt.” It seems like people who haven’t worn them habitually don’t know how they work.
Worst case: I fall down and you can see my knickers. Well that’s why I wear the knickers. And in nearly a half-century, I can think of maybe 2 times that’s happened. Both times I was sprinting madly to catch a bus and both times were due to my shoes and/or bad decisions.
Field hockey and lacrosse are both traditionally played in kilts.
Some other objections:
Need to don some Tyvek coveralls for work? It’s really no problem with a basic skirt. You just hike it up a bit. Those suits are baggy and everything fits. You also avoid the discomfort of two layers of leg fabric.
Cold weather? Tights are great, as are thigh high socks. And boots. All of these also look cute.
Oh, and packing for vacation? I can pack 3-4 skirts for every pair of jeans. It’s just a simple cloth tube which folds down to nothing.