A child shows us around her remote farmstead near the Peruvian city of Puno, close to the border with Bolivia.
We met this kid (and her pet lamb) during a day hike near Puno, and she’s wearing a bowler hat that’s more commonly worn by women in Bolivia.
Why bowler hats? The story goes that – in the late 1800s – a factory in Manchester shipped hundreds of bowler hats to Bolivia, destined for British labourers who were working on extending the country’s rail system.
But the hats were too small.
To get rid of the excess headwear, an entrepreneur in La Paz spread a rumour that bowler hats were popular with fashionable European women.
And the story stuck.
Before long the bower hat had become an essential fashion accessory in Bolivia, and was also adopted by women who live just over the border in Peru.
