It’s been a month… maybe a few days more, since I lost The hat… it was a good hat, a great hat… a green fedora…
At least the story is good… I bought it in a market in the Sacred Valley in Peru, I lost it in a cab in Buenos Aries…
I really liked that hat…
I had no plan to buy a hat on that March day… It was a Tuesday, March 20th… I was on vacation… I was in Peru. We started our day in Cusco… then by van over the pass to the ruins above Cusco at Sacsayhuaman (sounds like “Sexy woman…”) then down towards Pisac, across the Urubanba River, then up to the Inca ruins above the town… We walked among the ruins, our first experience with Inca ruins… scattered along the high ground, large stones… the terraces, clearly a great culture… along the way we met “local” Quechua ladies… The women I was traveling with turned back, but I forged on along a bit of the Inca trail, through a gate, through a tunnel… then rushed back to catch up with the group.
Having visited the ruins, we re-boarded the van and drove down the switchback to the river, a river in flood… water overflowed the bank… one bridge was threatened.
Into town… “New” Pisac, down a narrow street, our small van seemingly too large to fit… an intruder… Off into the market… It was market day… of course we had a guide…We had arraigned for our guide before we ever left home… our guides met us at each airport, with the van, to take us to our hotel, to take us on our tours…
Down a narrow street into the market… Along the street Quechua ladies sit, with piles of grass, hay, food for the cuy, guinea pig, the local delicacy… further in we reach the stalls with fruits and vegetables and cuts of raw meat… nearby a woman is selling dyes… dry powders… they are bright. I buy two sets of the colors. I confuse our guide and surprise the vendor… most westerners don’t buy dyes…
Further into the market… we are now in the tourist area, silver jewelry, rugs and weavings, tee shirts and hand crafts… to one side is a outdoor bakery with wood burning ovens and a cuy house in one corner… we try the empanadas… They are delicious… the meat inside is not easily identified… but, yes, cuy… Tina buys a silver necklace. We buy a small tapestry with hangs on our wall today above the computer… As we walk out of the market I see it… the hat… a green fedora… Here it is a ladies hat… Quechua women wear hats to identify the village they are from… purple bowlers are typical… the fedora, made in Cusco should identify me as from some specific village… I don’t care… the price is reasonable and I like it… It looks good on me…
We continue down river to near Huayilabamba, where we have lunch in a tourist restaurant with outdoor seating and parrots in the garden… then on to through the town of Urubanba to the town of Ollantaymbo… more ruins, we climb the steps in the ruins to the where the Inca trail is… From there it is back to Cusco, over the high plane… over 12,000’ through Chinchero and Poroy… back down to Cusco
The next day we take the train back, via Chichero and Poroy, to Urubanba then down river to Agua Calientes … Agua Calientes is commonly called Machu Pichu Village… We arrive in early afternoon, and immediately take the bus up the hills and switchbacks to the ruins… The ruins are more than expected… much more… we explore… we hike… we have lunch at the Machu Pichu Sanctuary hotel… It’s a high end resort hotel… we aren’t staying, just having lunch, but a backpacker on a downhill bus flips us the bird while we eat… we laugh… It starts to rain… we retreat down hill to Agua Calientes…
The next morning T and I get up and head back to the bus station to head back up to the ruins to see the sunrise… Its raining, and we realize its likely we won’t see the sun, but we go anyway… I wear the hat… (this post is all about the hat, but you have probably forgotten that by now)
Up the switchbacks again… we arrive in rain and fog and limited visibility… we embrace the weather and charge into the ruins… and discover our foul weather gear isn’t as weather proof as expected…we get wet… the hat (its all about the hat) gets soggy…limp…
Back down the hill we change out of wet clothing in the hotel restrooms (we had checked out before we left) I play with the hat… wet felt hats are interesting things… when wet, really wet they can be molded… I spent the rest of the day on the train back to Cusco playing with the hat, molding it, shaping it… making it mine… It was a little large after getting wet… I stuffed the rim with Peru Rail napkins… I continued to play with the hat, to mold the brim to the perfect shape… We established a relationship…
I wore it the rest of the trip through Peru, to Puno and Lake Titicaca, to Lima, to Ica and the Nasca lines… and on the plane back home… It made three trips to Washington DC with me… a trip down the west coast of Mexico, one to Belize, Guatemala, and Quintana Roo… It went to Yellowstone twice… I took it to Chicago… and I wore it while climbing through the ruins at Mesa Verde, there I had to take it off once and toss it ahead of me as I squirmed through a narrow passage at Balcony house ruin… I wore it while riding the White Pass & Yukon Railroad… It went to Yosemite several times… to Carson City three or four or five times… I wore it to Rio, but while in a crowded cab in Buenos Aries I took it off and set it on the shelf behind the back seat… when we got off in San Telmo I left it there… it was gone… I miss it… I still have my bowlers, my boater, a Stetson, more than one cap… but that was The hat…
I really liked that hat, but I have said that before... and now its gone...
Bye, Randy
At some point I will post the photos of the trip through Pisac and the market and Machu Pichu... The photos behind the story… just not now…I am still working through the photos from our recent trip…
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