The Secret Life of Hats

The higher up I travel and the smaller the cities get, the more there are people dressed in traditional costumes. Especially iconic are the hats women wear - many of which in our eyes seem a little too small for the person wearing them. High domes perch on heads - resembling elongated bowlers, or rounded top hats.

Yet not all hats are alike. In fact there is a lot of information that can be read from the hats: tribe, marital status, whether the wearer has children or not etc. I wonder what my travel hat is saying about me...

The origin of the different hat shapes is tied to the old traditions of worshipping volcanos. When the conquistadores landed in these parts some 500 odd years ago, the locals worshipped whichever volcano their village was overshadowed by. This had led to a very peculiar habit of shaping the skulls of babies to mimic the volcano in question. Tribes, who lived next to a tall and narrow based mountain would elongate the skulls of their newborn by wrapping planks tightly round their skulls for the initial year of their life. Their skulls were formed into an abnormally high and thin domelike shape. Another tribe living by a squat and wide volcano would force the skull into a low and wide shape. 

The conquistadores found the practice highly disturbing - and who's to blame them. Thereby they banned the practice and instead gave each tribe distinct hats, the shapes of which mimic their holy volcanoes. Some nifty lateral thinking there by the conquistadores. And this history is still visible in the hats the different tribes wear.

The altitude is certainly having some effect. At random times during the day I suddenly feel I can't catch my breath. A slightly panicky feeling, until it wears off. So I've been taking it slowly today. Wandering around markets sucking coca candy (vile stuff - no danger of me becoming addicted to these) and watching people paddle boats on the Titicaca. 

Oh and Titicaca has a lighthouse! This is undoubtedly the highest lighthouse (meters over sea level) in the world.