The Panama Hat Trail

One of the few books I've found about Ecuador...the book is nominally about the manufacture and distribution of Panama hats, but more a window to the Ecuadorean culture and people. And you get a description of what cuy (guinea pig) actually tastes like. And a chapter about Bemelmans--who wrote a travel book (The Donkey Inside), a kids' book (Quito Express), and a novel (Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep)taking place in Ecuador.

Tom Miller explores how Panama Hats are made and sold from the straw to Resistol in the United States. Along the way he describles the people and places he encounters. This book contains a bibliography and index.

Ah, the Panama hat: Ecuador's most famous export.

From Library Journal
Though offering perhaps more about Panama hats than the reader might ever want to know, this is a satisfying travel book that tells much else about Ecuador and its peoples. The growing, harvesting, and processing of straw, the weaving of it, the finishing of the hats, exportation, and all the bartering along the way is the glue that holds this book together. Visiting the countryside and towns such as Quito, Guayaquil, Lago Agrio, and Jipijapa ("among the ugliest towns south of the equator"), Miller tells us, among other things, about the Indians and their sad centuries-long plight, expatriates, illegal Ecuadorian emigration to the United States, precarious third-class Andean bus trips, the small Jewish community, and show more a wild and tragic Corpus Christi fiesta. Maps, index, and glossary not seen. Recommended for most travel collections. Roger W. Fromm, Bloomsburg Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib. show less

Panama