The Bowler Hats of Silvia

Anyone who has looked at pictures of people in South America has seen them, the indigenous women with  bowler hats perched precariously on their heads. I knew when I saw them I would be in the Andes, the great cordillera thousands of miles long, stretching the length of South America. At last here they are:

Actual bowler hats, so cool. I have to say they are an odd form of adornment and they don’t look practical at all. 

Silvia is a town of 32,000 people and 21,000 of them are called Guambiano, and yes that sounds like a Sicilian crime family but no they are just shy retiring people who speak their own language and come to Dilviacto shop and butter up the sidewalks like everybody else. I will say this; I did see some rather gender ambiguous people in the local costume but walking Rustybon a leash to keep him safe sends a message that he is actually possibly dangerous which is a great way to clear sidewalks. 

The whole bowler hat thing has me a bit mystified as the way they wear it the thing looks like an adornment not as anything practical.

A friend sent me an article explaining the history of the bowler which was designed by a Mr Bowler, an employee of Lock and Company a high class hatter in London. The hat was designed as a sturdy waterproof replacement for top hats that easily got knocked of horseback riders heads. The bowler was practical it was worn by working men to protect their  heads. 

And that’s how South Americans discovered it in the early 20th century when miners and railroad workers from Britain brought the bowler to Bolivia. I got the photo below from the Internet because that’s the kind of wearer I think of when I see a bowler. Indeed my father wore one on the train to his lawyering job in London every work day. It was as practical for him as it is for the residents of the Andes in my opinion. 

We had just left the mechanic’s shop and GANNET2 was at peak efficiency with no oil leaks and properly protected brakes. Driving up to 9200 feet however seemed more of a test for us than for our Promaster or even our dog, as neither of them seem to feel any altitude sickness. That pleasure has always been reserved for Layne and I, headaches, wheezing and a desire to throw up most commonly. 

I am pleased to say we seem to be acclimated at last and neither of is felt any ill effects at high altitude. Next month we hope to be in Ecuador with higher altitudes and after that Peru and Bolivia go higher still. It’s pretty crazy stuff but up to around 10,000 feet we seem to be okay at last. 

Silvia is not a wealthy town and though some tourists come up here from Popayan, a tourist center an hour away on the PanAmerican Highway this is not where you see backpackers and signs in English. 

Shopping is done the old fashioned way not by supermarket. Layne wandered from store to store picking up fruit and vegetables, hunting for decent quality, and milk at convenience stores with stops at the pharmacies looking for distilled water for my CPAP. We ask for injectable water and it comes in sealed plastic pint sized bags. Weird but it works. 

This is the bus stop with yellow cabs parked nearby. If you can’t afford a shared cab you can ride pillion on the back of a moto taxi which costs even less. 

Dressed in bright blue with bowler hat and umbrella (its still rainy season) this could be the City of London, more or less. 

Today is Tuesday so a bunch of women ride into Silvia with the campground owner for a women’s day out at the weekly market which is the tourist highlight in Silvia for locals too. 

On my visit I bought a potato ball fried and filled with a boiled egg. Layne preferred a chicken wing snack. Rusty rejected my offer to share mine but he saw a good thing in Layne’s hand. 

He is much braver these days meeting street dogs which are much more numerous in the poorer parts of Colombia, though they are still much better cared for than dogs in Mexico. 

I kept him on a leash for his own safety as motorbikes don’t slow down and the sidewalks were narrow. He seems to feel more confident when he is attached to me, and I know there is no accounting for taste. 

At Francis of Assisi is everywhere represented in statue form. I figure he had to be the most famous Umbrian in the world, and Assisi is an hour by car from where my sisters live and I grew up. 

Child safety seat in a Colombian cab: 

As excitement goes I know it probably doesn’t seem like much but it was a great end to the day. 

The van was fixed (for now! Always just “for now”) and we were breathing easily at altitude and we had bought a few odds and ends before we snugged down in the campground for a few days. 

Just wandering around town was fun, watching some sort of Volkswagen rally roll by.. 

…while seeing and being seen.  

When they aren’t wearing bowlers the indigenous wear collapsible straw hats for protection against the sun which they can hang off their backs when not in use. 

Rusty had a good time too and took a long nap before tackling his dinner that night. Like me, he’s getting gray and slowing down but he is still pretty spry when he feels like it. 

It still catches me by surprise to find myself and my home here in South America a couple of hundred miles from the Equator surrounded by wilderness and mountain peaks in a place apparently devoid of American tourists. We used to tour Florida aboard GANNET2 parking in the pine forests and listening to alligators croaking all night in the Everglades. Now, here we are and yes I do get homesick. 

But then we stopped on the way out of town to buy some Arequipa. They call it dulce de leche in Mexico, a goats milk soft caramel you may have had in ice cream.  

In Colombia arequipa is much milder than dulce de leche and tastes less sweet. 

Out there to the west it’s guerrilla country down to the Pacific Coast. It’s not safe to drive much past Silvia so we don’t.  Our friends from Quebec were driving the road we took a few weeks ago, the dirt road from San Agustin and the archeological park off to the east and they got stopped at a guerrilla checkpoint. We had been worried about it and happily never saw anything but Camille told us they looked in their Land Cruiser and asked for some money and when he said he had none they waved him on! That’s good news but we aren’t going off the main road between here and Ecuador. 

Back at La Bonanza the owner Anwar made us a Moroccan tagine (lamb stew) for dinner.

We had it with Moroccan bread and a Colombian Poker lager beer and it was delicious with lots of left overs. 

An Argentine family was camped for the night, too briefly, and we chatted a bit as they are on their way to Alaska. She was drinking the national drink of Argentina called “Yerba Maté” which they say is delicious but to my eye looks gross, like grass clippings. To know more about how they fuss to make this stuff you can look for it on YouTube or wait till November when we hope to be in Argentina ourselves and I’ll let you know all about it. 

That and how they wear their bowler hats in Bolivia. You know you want to know, as do I.