Dia Tres, June 26 - Sombreros and Thermal Pools

Started the day introducing Lori to the Otavalo market, just so she knows what we'll be doing a lot of early next week. So many goodies to bring back for READ sales.

Once done, we headed to find me a felt hat. Yes, I could buy one in the market, but I wanted to see where they are made. In this part of Ecuador you go to Iluman. A very small town, not as easy to find with my crazy google maps, but was well worth the journey. Roads were closed, roads weren't really roads and where google maps said the middle of town was, wasn't the spot. Finally we met this older gentleman on the road who I could speak with, but he went and got his son who spoke a bit of English and we figured it all out. So the older man jumped in the car and took us right to the door of the factory where his son and daughter both work.

The door was locked but they came and took us to the back of the factory where we saw hats in many different stages of being completed. It was amazing and everyone was nice and friendly, explaining the process to us. Iluman is known for the famous Ecuadorian fedora and shamans and the hat company was called Shaman Sombreros. Perfect. We each purchased a hat and it seems like a special treat as we got to see how they are made.

From there, we headed up to the thermo baths of Chachimbrio, which are heated from the fractures in the rock of the Chachimbrio volcano on which they very close to. The pool are different temperatures and there is a variety of different minerals that are said to have healing properties. The pools are all different colors based on the mineral content. There were some VERY warm pools and some warm pools and some polar pools (which we didn't go in). I was so comfy from the very warm pools, I didn't want to get cold. There are many different places to go for the thermal baths, but we chose the oldest and the one that is the highest in elevation, Santagua. They have more public options, but for $5 more a person, we could go to the spa, much less public and a lot few people. We poured ourselves back into the car and after our dinner and a few glasses of wine, I'm just a limp noodle and ready for sleep!