When two Texans opened the Black Sheep Inn almost twenty years ago, villages in the Toachi-Quilotoa area began to receive visitors. Since then most of the pueblos in the region have opened hostels of their own, and a few sport internet cafés as well. The increased tourism is a mixed blessing. Tourists bring in money to the local communities, but the largely indigenous population seems to approach the infux of extranjeros with a wary tollerance.
But the story is older than that. In her paper “Seizing the Lake”*, María Belén Noroña details the history of the indigenous community at Quilotoa and their relationship with tourism. Long considered second class citizens (Indigenous People were not uniformly able to vote until 1979 when Spanish literacy requirements were removed from the voting registration process), and for centuries victims of the hacienda system and a series of agrarian reforms, the community at Quiotoa formed a cooperative in 2002.
The first hikers through the region received a chilly reception, a few, it seems, were actually physically driven from the town. But a local guide Sr. Latacunga began to lead visitors through the region, not only did he know the paths through the Andes, but he also offered safe passage through the region. Over the past decade, the cooperative has come to see tourism as a viable source of income. Both men and women are learning spanish and at least 10 family-owned hostels can be found along the road.
When we arrived in Quilotoa in the back of a pickup truck from Chugchilán, hostel owners vied for our patronage with a shy reserve. We settled in one, basic but comforatble enough. The chiminea, when our hostess lit it in the evening, was welcome. (At nearly 13,000 feet, the nights are frigid.)
It was the lake, the crown jewel of the loop that enticed us to stay. Cupped in the hollow of an inactive volcano, the saline green waters lie over 1000´ below the rim. Warmth rising up the steep walls from the lake seemed to defy the afternoon mist, and as we strolled along the caldera´s edge, the clouds parted again and again to offer us views.
During our stay we watched tourists shiver out of their cars and tour busses, ascend through the artisan market, and follow the path inside the caldera to the lake below. Men and women (in their customary knee-skirts and brightly colored shawls) worked on improvements to the path, digging drainage ditches and building a mortared stone wall to edge the path. Handlers jogged down the path with mules, and sold rides back out of the caldera to visitors. When they returned to their cars, many people sported new hats, sweaters or gloves bought in the market.
The town is doing well, in many respects. And in some ways, families cling to their traditions - women dress in the traditional skirts, shawls and hats and the sibilant sounds of Quichua wisper from the hearth. But kids wear designer jeans, and coke and potato chips line store walls. I hope they can find an easy truce, this cooperative, between tradition and tourism. For me, at least, staying with a local family became as much a part of my experience as the lake. I appreciated too the cheer of bright shawls in the gathering evening mist.
*Noroña,María Belén.“Seizing the Lake: Tourism, Identity and Power of the Indigenous
Peoples of Quilotoa, Ecuador”. Latin American Studies Program, University of Texas at Austin. http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/ilassa/2007/belen.pdf. Acessed 19 Feb 2012.
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