Give us a factory over a museum any day. After a year and a half of travel, seeing another museum is not necessarily a welcome sight. Albeit there have been many beautiful museums in our journey…. But please, not another showcase of inanimate objects with poorly lit explanations in Spanish.
Some noise, some grime and plenty of workers going at it full force making all those incredible felt hats; now that’s something we don’t get to see every day. Especially since getting a tour of the hat factory is a little known secret so we had a private tour.
It started with the dirty wool straight off the sheep’s back and was transformed into beautiful Bolivian felt hats in every shape and size. The ‘WOW’ was all the in-between processes and the incredible lack of safety precautions.
Our 2 guides were studying tourism at the local university and were happy to shout out facts and figures in rapid fire Spanish that could neither be heard nor understood. So, we did our part with the universal head nod and shouted ‘Si, Si muy interestante’!
Here is one instance when photos alone cannot describe the experience, enjoy this video!
Current hat count:
Patti~ 3 (Colombian Cowgirl Hat, Panama Hat, Styl'n Bolivian Felt Hat)
Janet~ 1 (Styl'n Bolivian Felt Hat)
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| Our Styl'n Bolivian Hats |
These ones were fun but didn't make the cut.
Wow, great stuff!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tour. I'm surprised that you did not try your hand at making a hat as well. Who knows, this might be a career option...
ReplyDelete