The hunt begins. Simón called the owner of the land and asked permission for us to hike in and cut cogollos. The owner was supposed to come with us but he called in lazy that day. Smart man.

Left to right: Carlos, Simón’s son. Simón, the best hat weaver on the planet. Roff Smith, travel writer of renown. Diego. Jorge.

Diego and Jorge are brothers. Wish they were my brothers. Great guys. They are my new business partners in Montecristi, so I’m sure we’ll be arguing like brothers in no time at all.

The trail doesn’t look too muddy, does it? It is very muddy, and it gets worse once we get out of the pasture and into the rain forest.

This trail is uphill all the way from the beginning to where the Panama Hat Plants grow. That’s a two-hour hike. Curiously, it seems to be uphill all the way back too.

Simón makes this hike regularly. He chooses and cuts the cogollos he will use to prepare his straw. He does not feel comfortable allowing anyone else to do it for him. I suppose if he is going to be bent in half weaving for eight or nine hours every day it makes sense to make sure he’s working with the best possible straw.

The hike to cut the plants was two hours of slip-and-slide climbing, uphill, in ankle-deep mud clingy as a frightened baby. I went ass over elbows once and made a glorious splatter, leaving a lovely imprint of my posterior portions as a warning to others to step carefully.

Another time I went mud skiing with my right foot while my left foot stayed mired in the muck and I hurtled face first into a thorny hedge. Not as enjoyable as it might sound.

At one point, Simón commented to Roff, totally without any intended irony, “It’s good we came today. Sometimes it’s bad.” Maine humor in Ecuador.

Those shoes were white before the hike. I had to scrape off most of the mud to see the shoes at all.

The plants are carludovica palmata. The scientific classification of the plant was made in the late 18th century by two Spanish botanists. The name is a contraction of Carlos (Carlos IV, King of Spain), and Luduvica, Latin for Louisa (wife of Carlos IV). Basically, the botanists were sucking up to the boss.

Simón searches through the grove of plants, looking for cogollos that are the right age and plumpness. (Left)

He rejects some that are too young, saying they will be ready in another week or two. Others are past their prime, too large, the leaf shoots inside already a little too tough to be used in the very finest hats. Simón chooses carefully.

Simón cuts the stalk itself, below where it fattens, gravid with intent to make a new frond.

He will need at least 24 cogollos to weave a hat. Often more, if the yield of perfect straw is low in some of the cogollos.

The grove of Panama Hat Plants “near” Simón’s village is quiet, damp (rain forests are often damp), home to a million hungry mosquitoes with Gringo on the menu. It is relatively open amidst the plants, looking tended almost managed. Simón moves rapidly, confidently, hard to keep up with. His judgments come quickly, unhesitatingly. Yes. No. He pauses only for the camera, smart, an instinctively good model. Choose, hold, cut, hold, move on.

I love it. Slogging through a South American rain forest, juggling cameras, swatting at mosquitoes, trying not to slip and die, trying harder to keep up with the best weaver in the world as he cuts the plants to make the straw to make the miracles. I am at the source of my Nile.

These cogollos that Simón cuts today will be turned into straw that will be woven into a hat beyond belief, a work of art.

When Simón has enough cogollos for the week ahead, he gathers them up and binds them with the fibers of mature fronds from the same plants.

He makes a shoulder strap from the fronds and he’s ready to go back. Me too. The mosquitoes are very, very disappointed that I’m leaving. I can hear them whining all around me.

See Simón tame his wild cogollos. NEXT PAGE