Condor comes from kuntur in Quechua, the language of the Inca, and reached English through Spanish around 1600. With wings spanning up to 3.3 metres, the Andean condor is one of the largest flying birds in the world.
📍 Mali (Bambara lands)
Shea comes from si, the tree's name in Bambara, a language of Mali; the Scottish explorer Mungo Park spelled it 'shea' in his 1799 travel book. The wild trees grow across Africa's savanna belt, from Senegal to South Sudan.
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📍 Spa, Belgium
Spa is named after Spa, a small town in eastern Belgium whose healing springs drew visitors from 1326 on. The popular claim that it stands for the Latin 'sanitas per aquam', health through water, only appeared in the 21st century.
📍 Sydney region (Georges River), Australia
Boomerang comes from an Aboriginal language of the Sydney area, written down as 'bou-mar-rang' in 1822. Yet the oldest known boomerang, carved from a mammoth tusk, was found in a cave in Poland.
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📍 Southwestern Colombia & Ecuador
Hawaii's glossy, heart-shaped anthurium is native to Colombia and Ecuador and only reached the islands from London in 1889. The red 'heart' isn't a petal: the real flowers are the tiny bumps on its spike.
📍 Lake Titicaca (Peru & Bolivia)
The siku is the panpipe of the Andes, most at home among the Aymara around Lake Titicaca. Its pipes come in two halves, ira and arka, traditionally played by two musicians who alternate notes to build a single melody.
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📍 Ecuador (Montecristi to Cuenca)
Panama hats are woven in Ecuador from toquilla palm straw. They got the wrong name because travellers, including Gold Rush prospectors crossing the isthmus, bought them in Panama. UNESCO listed the weaving craft in 2012.