Panama Hats

Many years ago when I was first in Ecuador, I learned that this country was the actual origin of the "Panama Hat". On that visit I didn’t manage to buy one but have somewhat regretted it ever since because they are significantly more expensive to buy outside of Ecuador. So, one of my objectives for this visit (if I got this far)was to buy a nice Panama Hat.

A little research...
1) Why is it called a Panama hat if it originates from Ecuador?
There are several stories about this and you can take your pick. The first is that the hat was imported to Panama in quantities in the 18th century and used a great deal by the workers who built the Panama Canal - a huge story in its own right. The other most common story is that it was effectively named by US president Teddy Roosevelt around 1900 after he visited the Panama Canal and purchased one of the hats there. On return to the states, when he was asked what sort of hat it was, he referred to it as a Panama hat because that was were he got it.

2) What sort of hat is it anyway?
Well, I believe its technically a Fedora.

3) What is it made of and How is it made?
It is made of shredded palm leaves (Carludovica Palmata) which is a small palm from the coastal side of the Andes mountains in Ecuador. The leaves are shredded and then hand woven into a blank (a ¨brimmed cone¨). The weaving process can take months for a single hat and there are two places in Ecuador that do this MonteCristi and Cuenca. The MonteCristians were the originals and have been doing it for hundreds of years, while the Cuencans have taken the art up more recently and have been doing it for about 50 years. After the blanks are woven, they are bought up by hat makers and blocked into the shapes that we are familiar with.

4) What’s so special and why are people willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for them?
Well, I don’t know really. I can say that a good one is definitely a creation of great skill and beauty. I can say that a good one is beautifully soft and supple and will last for years. They can also be rolled up and stored in a cylinder indefinitely for transport.
I also think that they look very nice.
The price of the hat is basically dependent on the quality and quantity of work involved in its making. Good hats have a very consistent, very tight, and very fine weave (up to 30 fibres per inch). In my shopping around Quito I was shown one hat that was very fine and was priced at $US800 and the salesman was quite adamant that it would sell in the states for about ten times that price. Yes it was a salesman, but I was inclined to believe him. I wanted to spend about $60 for a reasonable hat but having seen a felt the really nice hats, I just didn’t like the feel of the hats at that price, so I ended up spending more than I planned - Oh well you only live once, and its just money. I feel happy with the hat I got but I’m sure I’ll never cut it in high society :) ...

Fluffy Chickens at the Equator

OK, so I posted the pictures before I wrote any content this time - seemed like the thing to do at the time :)

Last posting was from Popayan in Colombia. It then took us two more days riding South before we got to Ecuador. According to the Lonely Planet book and several Colombian and traveler sources, the section of road south of Popayan was a dangerous one! We were repeatedly advised to only travel in the day, leave very early in the morning and to basically "not stop for anything". Having now ridden through without incident I think I can safely say that it was a load of bunk! There was no feeling of insecurity at all (for me), The people we saw were all going about their lives as normal, and while there was some military presence on the road, it was actually far less than in most other parts of Columbia where we have been. - Its hard to tell up front if these types of stories have validity but it'd be unwise to ignore them all completely too. You just have to head into things with your eyes open.

The scenery on this section of road was very nice and the highway was also good. On the flip side though, while the countryside looked lovely, it was all farm land... It was beautiful rolling green hills again that we have seen all through the Colombian highlands. The mountains were completely cleared of trees but the land is too steep for machines to work and crop planting is also limited - Which just leaves grazing. This makes the place look quite like some areas in New Zealand to my eye. The sad part is that there is virtually no natural habitat left in the highlands here. Apparently lots of the Colombian jungle down in the Amazon is intact (although also being cleared at a terrible rate). The mountains however are already lost to the native species. This is particularly sad since there was undoubtedly a huge diversity of fauna and flora here that must now be more or less extinct.

After the "dangerous" section of road was completed, another hotel was selected in a small city for the night. It was selected based on price and cleanliness but this time it was a poor choice since it turned out that many rooms got rented out on an "hourly" basis! It was also a Friday evening and as you can imagine, it was a noisy night... Oh well.

South again the next day. The road was again excellent and the scenery got even nicer. It took only a couple of hours to get to the boarder with Ecuador and the formalities here were quite casual and straight forward. The boarder is a large and very modern crossing unlike all the ones in Central America. It took us about an hour to get the customs and immigrations stuff done and then we headed into Ecuador with the aim of getting to Quito the capital by days end.

Ecuador seemed to be slightly poorer than Colombia but the roads were still excellent. The first thing to note of significant difference to Colombia was that the gasoline costs only about half as much - great! Again, the countryside was beautiful farm land and again I feel bad at the thought of all the native plants and animals that must have been lost here. The climate seems to be drier here (probably dependent on how far east or west of the mountain peaks we are. The road has been climbing and falling quite a bit today and we have also had direct sun and drizzling rain at various times. Over the course of the day we have had to add and remove layers of clothing at least four times - More than on any other day of riding I have had. Even the chickens here in the mountains have extra protection from the cold. ..They are incredibly fluffy and look like over grown chicks.

About an hour from Quito, the GPS on Marie's bike indicated 00 00.0000 on the latitude and switched from North readings to South. We stoped the bikes on the highway and took a picture at this random point on the road where apparently the equator runs.
Not much else to see here so we get back on the bikes and continue toward the city. As we get closer, the traffic gets congested due to the big trucks and buses on the highway and the very steep and windy road. We have both become very good at negotiating this stuff and are happy to thread our way through any available gap. This means plenty of passing on the inside (between the curb and the trucks) or on the yellow lines that divide traffic while equally dense traffic comes the other way, or any other gap that opens. Its "every man for them self" here and the locals do it too. The trick is to be absolutely fully attentive to whats going on around you and to take full responsibility for what you choose to do. I haven't felt in any significant danger doing this stuff at all but I might be getting some bad habits for driving when I get back to civilization in Vancouver :)

We make it into the city at around 5pm and start the search for another hotel in another big city in another new country with minimal idea of where we are or where we want to be - Normal stuff really :)

In the Land of Cane

After Armenia we got up early so that we could hopefully get to Popayan. This was about 600Km and we were a bit worried that we may not make it all the way since the day before we only managed about 350Km.
It turned out that we easily made the distance by about 1pm but not without a few minor incidents. The way out of the city was quite straight forward and the highway was a beauty - It was just like one in the USA with separated flows and beautiful pavement. The highway swept over the plains which were covered with vast fields of waving green sugar cane and then wound up through the gentle green hills with magnificent views. I was so captivated with the views that I nearly missed a branch in the road and also nearly went off one curve. I survived that incident but I "came to grief" at one of the toll booths.
In Colombia the highways all seem to have regular toll booths. This however is no issue for motorbikes since there is no charge. There is always a little side lane for motorbikes to bypass the toll windows. This lane is usually very narrow (75cm or so) but the big bikes fit since there is rarely any obstruction above about 20cm high on one side - which means there is room for the big side cases if you ride to one side in the little lane. However today was not my day and the front wheel of the bike glanced the inside curb - reacting to this sent me over to the side with the guard rail - and that hit the side case - which sent me back toward the curb at a steeper angle, and this time the bike went over since the curb was too high for the wheel to climb!
So there I was sprawling myself, my luggage and half the motorbike in a traffic lane with about twenty onlookers and many of them with uniforms and badges etc. Needless to say I felt highly embarrassed! Everyone was very nice and helped pick the bike up and it was all smiles when I was OK and had got the bike out of the way.
I was far more cautious going through these lanes for the rest of the day! :)
We successfully arrived in Popayan early in the afternoon and had a walk around the town after locating a nice little hotel with a lovely courtyard.

Popayan is another small "colonial" city with all whitewashed walls and pleasant architecture. These days that word is always said with rolling eyes since I am just about all "colonialed" out! That said, the colonial towns are still generally far nicer than their modern heartless equivalents :)

A mostly good day - but I think the gods were telling me I should pay more attention so I´ll try to work on that :)

Blowfly Bikers and the Slow Road to Armenia

We had two rest days in Medellin (in the middle of Columbia) which is a large and very modern city. The hostel (Casa Kiwi) that we stayed at was a very nice place (although a bit crowded) and was in a quiet neighbourhood, but the city seemed rather soul-less to me. There was plenty of clubbing for the younger crowd, but there was no atmosphere and it felt just like any modern Western city.

When we went to load our bikes up to depart, we discovered that the garage door had been sprayed bright orange the day before and that the bikes inside had only partially been protected with drop sheets. There was quite a bit of overspray and the bikes had a light coating of orange all over them. This was very annoying to say the least. It may or may not come off with time!

So we headed out of the city and immediately got lost trying to get on the big freeway headed south. It took us about an hour to work our way out since even when you get on the freeway, it will spit you off without warning or recourse if you happen to be in the wrong lane at the wrong time. After we were out of the city and on the right road, it only took about another half hour before we were headed completely off route again (according to the GPS). We had seen no turn-offs and don't know how it happened but there was little to be done about it.
I also had a very close call with one of the local dogs! They are not always that "road-wise" and this one was very distracted by something. It moved right into my path and seemed to ignore my blaring horn completely. I slammed on the brakes and ended up giving the poor animal a firm but glancing blow on the backside with my front wheel - got my pulse up a bit though :)
We continued riding on more minor roads in the hills South of Medellin and I have to say that the countryside was absolutely beautiful, so I'm not actually complaining about getting lost. We rode through regions of forest and farm land. There were rolling hills covered with long green grass and cattle grazing on the hillsides. There were lots of big eucalyptus trees too, so it really felt like riding through dairy country in southern Australia. We also rode through lots of coffee plantation areas and the sheer amount of it explains why Colombia is a very large exporter of this the worlds most traded commodity (I read that somewhere).
Eventually (after a few back tracks and redirects) we came out at a river crossing and a junction with a larger road. This the locals assured us would get us to where we wanted to go, and another bike rider (on a very nice KTM sport bike) we met said we should stick to the route along the river. This we did and it was well and truly worth it with very nice riding.

With all the wrong turns and small windy road riding we took, we didn´t get very far and we stopped in the smaller city of Armenia overnight. The city is small and bustling and not at all historic (All the old buildings get regularly destroyed by earthquakes). That said, the people there were very nice and , more interestingly, fascinated by us and our large touring bikes. We had already found that there were a very large number of motorcycles in Colombia but they are mostly small (125cc or less).
In Medelline I found them very frustrating when I was struggling in traffic since all the bike riders tend to cluster around the big bikes so they can get a good look and ask some questions when we stop at lights. This is flattering and they are all very nice people, but they are invariably right in the way when I need to have space to make a sudden avoidance manouver or impromptu change of course (like I need that exit ramp that I have just about passed!).
In Armenia we parked in the dense city heart to find a cheap hotel and it took about two minutes for us to be surrounded by about a hundred people on the footpaths. They were very curious and the odd one or two who spoke some English got to be stars for the crowd as we were debriefed with all the usual questions. There was even one mum making her little girl (must have been about 8yo) try out her English from school on us - she did very well and the crowd was very pleased :)
So, we survived our day of wanderings and found a hotel for the night. Parking was not possible in the hotel though but that was no problem since we had about three or four people (including a very friendly police officer) all happy to walk us to a local parkade where we deposited the bikes for the night - albeit at a slightly inflated price as it turned out ;).

Can You Keep a Secret

Day two of riding South in Colombia.

Today was a good day.
After leaving the "hotel of no sleep" we continued South and wound our way along a quite large river. The road was in excellent condition, the drivers were all careful and well behaved, and the scenery was amazing. Other things to note were:
1) The only people around here with guns are the police and military. They are quite visible but are not very intrusive. This is different to all of central America where there are lots of locals with guns on there hips and lots and lots of rent-a-guards all with shotguns or pistols standing around all over the place (from beer trucks to donut shops)
2) There is very little garbage around the place. Again this is very different to central America. The people here seem to care more about keeping the place tidy.
3) The houses here are much more pleasant to look at. I had a good rant in an earlier blog about the "architectural litter" in Mexico, and the same was true of central America. However, here the houses are made with the same materials and even with less (there are lots of houses with thatched roofs and woven matting walls), but they are neat and finished and painted and there are very few chunks of reinforcing steel sticking out all over the place. Not sure why this is but it is far nicer to look at.

In short, Colombia seems to be the nicest place I have been to yet! The countryside is like Costa Rica but it is much bigger and has far less traffic and very few tourists - I love it :)