Festival del Sombrero de Paja Toquilla

Montecristi, the small Ecuadorian town where the finest toquilla straw hats, long misnamed Panama hats, are still hand-woven, holds a festival honoring this craft alongside Cuenca, the larger city that historically became the export hub for the trade, celebrating a UNESCO-recognized weaving tradition central to identity and livelihood in both towns.

The hat the world calls Panama actually originates entirely in Ecuador, woven from the fibers of the toquilla palm along the country's coast, with Montecristi producing the finest examples anywhere using a technique so labor-intensive that master weavers, a shrinking group, can spend months on a single superfino hat, working in humid morning and evening hours when the straw stays pliable enough to weave into extraordinarily fine, tight patterns.