On our way to the town of Campeche we stopped off in a small town totally devoted to the weaving of Panama hats. Becal is a small very rustic town. Jacques procured us some local transportation. These three wheel tricycles are used by all the locals to get from one place to another. The whole round trip ride cost us each 10 pecos about a $1.oo. We stopped and visited a gentleman's home and workshop. He had been weaving hats for over 50 years. He gave us a demonstration of how the plant fibers are separated with a needle to make the long fiber threads used to weave the hats. The actual weaving takes place down inside of a cave where the dampness helps to keep the fibers nice and flexible. Up to 10 people would sit down in his small underground cave and weave at the same time. The geography of this part of Mexico makes the ground like Swiss Cheese so that almost all houses come with their own weaving cave. He explained the different grades of woven hats. A true Panama hat takes around 3 weeks to weave and uses only the thinnest finest fibers. Those hats are in the $350.00 price range. Sadly I was unable to purchase any hats. The ones he had for sale that day were either to small or looked really bad on me.
Sculpture of Panama hats in the town plaza.
Bacel's church
Local transportation we took to the hat factory.
The plants on the left are the type used to gather the fibers to make Panama hats
This shows how a needle is used to separate the fibers on each leaf.
A partially woven hat-this is about 1 1/2 weeks worth of work.
We are down inside a cave and this gentleman is demonstrating how to weave a hat. They sit for hours and hours down inside these damp dark caves everyday.
1 comment:
Lo siento on the panama hats. No wonder they are so expensive.
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