We stayed in Cuenca 4 1/2 days and had some Spanish lessons. The town is an old colonial town with small streets, all one way which creates long traffic jams in the morning and the evening. Ecuador is the home of the Panama hat, which workers wore when constructing the panama canal. So this is how it got its name. You see the hats everywhere on the street. So we decided to visit a company where these hats are produced. It quite impressive how they do this, a done with machines which seem to be 100years old and a lot by means of the hands of experienced workers. The production site is quite famous and lots of celebrities have been there to visit. We left Alberto and his nice and friendly personal at around 1:30 since Christy had Spanish lessons in the morning. The countryside kept being beautiful. The road led through the mountains and went from 3500m down to 2000m and back up to 3500 within few kilometers. In some areas the landscape looked like Bavaria. Sheep and cows standing around on the meadows chewing up the fresh green grass.

It was pretty cold that day and we were freezing a lot.

It got slowly dark and after a nice sunset on the road we arrived in the dark in Lojas. We found a real nice restaurant around the corner of the hotel and went to bed real tired.

The company is the largest manufacturer of Panama hats

This guy is cutting the edges of the hats, since 30 years…

hats getting pressed in shape with hot steam

cool style…

On the way to Lojos

Great illumination of the landscape south of Cuenca

North of Lojos

it was getting dark as we approached Lojas