Photos

Azoques is a pretty Spanish colonial village about 35 mi. from Cuenca in Ecuador. The village clings to the hillsides, and the steep, cobbled-stoned streets were empty after a heavy rainfall. Suddenly, a crowd appeared through my zoom lens at the bottom of the hill. It seemed the entire population of the village was taking part in a funeral procession. I hid with my tripod in a doorway off the narrow sidewalk and shot to my heart's content as the procession walked past me up to the church at the top of the hill. Azoques, along with several other villages in the Cuenca area is the centre of the Panama hat cottage industry. Everyone wears these palm-straw hats, and I even saw women carrying the straw behind their backs as they walk, or weave it into hats on doorsteps.