Cuenca

     I love this town. I should tell you a little about it and then tell you what we did these last two days, Cuenca is at 8200 feet in the Andes. It is in a high green valley where four rivers come together. It is along the old Incan road that connected the empire's northernmost reaches in Ecuador to its capitol Cusco in Peru. However it was a Canari town before that starting in 500 AD. It was called Tomebamba by the Incans and one river running through town is still called that. They also called it Pumapungo. Then the Spaniards came in the 1550s and claimed it thinking it might be El Dorado but the Incans burned and ran. It became independent in 1820. Much of the Colonial period architecture is still there and much of the newer construction in the old town is colonial style.
     Yesterday (2/3) we went to the Homero Ortega hat factory. There is no such thing as a Panama hat. Teddy Roosevelt named them that because he saw them in Panama but they were imported there from Ecuador and then to the world. Ecuadorians have been making palm leaf hats long before the Spaniards came and only changed their style. "The history of toquilla straw shows deep ancestral roots.  When the Spaniards disembarked centuries ago, they saw natives covering their heads with a strange woven article similar to “vampire wings.” In 1630 Francisco Delgado persuaded them to convert them into brimless hats, or “toquillas,” and in 1796 Charles the V promoted the creation of craft guilds, among them was the “straw hat” guild. This article is the legacy and fusion of two cultures, which has lasted until today in all its splendor." -Homero Ortega Website. Go check it out here. Homero Ortega uses native weavers and shapers, The finishes for the hats in done in Cuenca and then shipped all over the world. They employ over 150,000 (i think this might have been a cultural gap - maybe 15,000) Ecuadorians. It can be a long process. The hats Cael and I got were probably super quick, woven in 2-3 days, the highest quality hats are had woven by palm strands at thin as thread, take 5-8 months to weave and fetch thousands of dollars. We learned all this on the tour, go see the pictures. We had a super friendly tour guide and were fitted personally in the store. One of Homer's sons came in to personally see that we had good pictures taken of our whole family with their great hats.
     We lunched with the kind lawyer couple who helped us when we were out in Olon - Grace and Nelson. They are friends of Sandra's and they made sure the house was ready to go when we arrived in December. Nelson was at the beach house when we arrived helping with some of the finishing work and keeping the "architect" (aka contractor) honest. They also stopped by the house mid-January, but that was also a bit strained, as we had a punch list of things the architect might have paid better attention to and then there was the small issue of water leaking out of the back of the house. So, having a quiet, relaxed lunch when we talked about their favorite parts of Ecuador, their families and their business was a nice connection not strained by topics such as septic tanks and internet hookups! They are quite accomplished as lawyers with 80% of their clients being expats. Nelson did say during lunch that not many Ecuadorians needs lawyers...so, it's probably a wise business decision to engage the foreigners as clients.
     Afterwards we made our way back home but stopped at the Parque de la Madre in our neighborhood. The kids climbed and zipped lined. Lumia was followed around by a little girl and Cael got to play soccer for a little bit.
     Today (2/4) we tried to go to one museum but it was closed. That's okay, the museum we did go to was awesome. The Museon Pumapungo had a standard art exhibit of a local guy James Pilco. He is a doctor and a painter. Some of his art is creepy but his paintings of kids are great, full of emotion and action. There was a whole floor showing a little bit about 15 or so native groups all in Ecuador from jungle headhunters to tropical fishers to mountain crafts people. But my favorite part was the combination archaeological Incan ruins of Pumapungo with a garden of native and Ecuadorian domesticated plants. It sat perched on a hill looking over half the city. Down at the bottom below the Incan terraces was the native gardens and a recovering native bird program.
     Then we had a very american meal of hamburgers with Ecuadorian cocktails at the INCAN Lounge and Bistro. Afterwards we headed home for a movie night. Buenos Noches.