Friends with Cars
Having friends who own and operate a vehicle in Ecuador is a treasure for sure. Jim and Angie are a delightful and special couple without a vehicle but they enjoy sharing their SUV with others. They love a little adventure just like Rachel and me. The other day we took off for Sig Sig. The views along the way were wonderful. We love Cuenca, but getting out of town and into the country calms our spirit and adjusts our attitude.
Panama Hats
Everyone has heard about Panama hats, but did you realize that they are made in Ecuador? Did you know that the World’s Largest Panama Hat is in Sig Sig Ecuador? I’m not sure that Guinness has verified this claim because I doubt if Guinness could find their way to Sig Sig in the first place. Let’s just say this…..it’s a very big Panama hat. The hat factory was lightly staffed the day we were there but there seemed to be plenty of products to choose from. Rachel was in her element. She knows how to wear a hat.
The Panama hat, or just Panama as it is sometimes called, is made predominantly in Montecristi in the Manabí Province of Ecuador. The Montecristi hats have a fine fiber and an extremely tight weave that can take months to produce. They are a work of art and are extremely expensive. Teddy Roosevelt popularized the hat in 1909 when he visited the Panama Canal. Going forward it became unfairly known as the Panama hat.
The Azuay Province version of the Panama is a somewhat lesser quality hat but is made from the same fibers of the carludovica palm. It is said that these fibers are only accessible in very remote areas of Ecuador and are carried to the road by donkeys. They are then shipped to factories largely in the Azuay and Manabí provinces where they are painstakingly woven by hand.
The Culture and Countryside Around Sig Sig
After Angie and Rachel got their fill of hats we took off out of town looking for a back road that might never have been traveled by gringo tires. Based on the expression of the foot travelers along the road, I think we found one. Jim keeps a store of candies in the front seat to give as treats for the youngsters he encounters walking along the road, kind of like trick or treat in reverse. Instead of buying amnesty from tricksters we exchanged candies for smiles. We used up a lot of candies but the smiles that came back would have melted an Alaskan glacier.
Indigenous girls in the Azuay province marry and have children at a very young age although not necessarily in that order. They learn early how to care for their younger siblings so Mom can help out in the fields. There seems to be a certain cultural order about this. As we drove through the remote countryside I felt we had stepped back a hundred years to see the young mothers with their smallest children on their back and the older ones obediently in tow. Everywhere we looked there were farmers tilling the soil with their cattle under yoke. Often we saw the farmer’s wife out with her husband seemingly cheering him on as the black soil was overturned by the wooden plow.
You can come to Ecuador and visit the beaches at Manta, the colonial churches of Quito and Cuenca or the jungles of the oriente. Jim and Angie showed us the true heart and soul of this beautiful country on the roads less traveled.
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