Our walking tour of Cuenca ended at the Panama Hat Factory. Not really a factory, as the basic weaving of the hats is done in small workshops, a sort of cottage industry, I think. Here the hats are finished, shaped, and prepared for sale and export. Nobody was doing any of this on the day we visited, so the tour evoked polite interest rather than excitement at first. This changed when we reached the showroom and sales rooms. Some people apparently have a peculiar reaction (not listed in the DSM-5) to being surrounded by hats on pegs, available for trying on. Ecuador has discovered this: the sale of Panama hats has long been a significant part of the country's economy. Credit cards are accepted here, and many of our group were encumbered for the rest of this tour by having to carry cardboard boxes containing Panama hats (and proclaiming this is large letters) in and out of buses, hotel rooms, aircraft and boats.