Cuenca

My guide took me around Cuenca the next morning. All the standard sights were there, Cathedral, square, government buildings etc. I told him I did not want to see the same old stuff but would rather just see how the people live and work or play. So he drove me around to see the different neighborhoods. Cuenca is a big city with bad traffic so I quickly tired of that tour also. We ate lunch at a place I picked out in an industrial area of town where I saw lots of people hanging around. I enjoyed the simple cheap food at this place. Then we went to a Panama hat company to watch them make Panama hats. Panama hats originated in Ecuador but became known as Panama hats when they were sold to all the workers building the Panama canal back in the day. The name has stuck ever since. Ecuador gets no respect for originating the hats. They are now made in China and Mexico more than any place else but the best quality ones still come from the factory we went through.

The factory had a good display on how the hats are made from the plant they use to the weaving technique used to make the various styles. They even make fancy wedding dresses out of the same material as the Panama hats. They had a photo display of famous people wearing hats made by this company and lots of pics of famous people right at the factory buying their hats. I tried to buy a hat after the tour was over. They had literally thousands of hats there but not one large enough to fit over my melon sized head. They were kind of embarrassed about not having a hat on hand that fit me so they took me out to the factory again, measured my head and made me a hat that fit me perfectly. The guy that made it was amazed at how fat my head was. He had a little pin sized head and I told him to try mine on and it covered his entire head. We laughed about it but I took my custom made hat and wore it around for the rest of the day before storing it in its box to take good care of it. My doctors have been telling me to wear a wide brimmed hat for years because of all the skin cancers I have been having and now I finally had one that fit me well.

After the hat factory we went out and sat at a cafe to watch the people go by. I just did not have the energy to do any more touring around. I only wanted to sit and watch the world go by me. My guide didn't mind the easy day either. We talked at length about his education and family. I quizzed him on his attitude about almost every topic in the news from politics to gay marriage. He was very open and seemingly honest in his answers. He even told me where he diverges from the norm in Ecuador. There was not much divergence as far as I could see. The country seems to be very uniform in its culture.

The next morning we were scheduled to cross over the Andes and drop down to the coast before I flew to the Galapagos Islands for the last leg of my Ecuador trip. I wanted to rest up so I gave my guide the rest of the day off.