They didn’t get as much problems from conquistadors as other native people of Latin America had. The rumors touched the interesting fact how the inhabitants of valley Otavalo quickly reached royal chambers. They also were masterful in getting the cloth from wool of lamas and vicunas created by the Indians. Spanish men put a render fee to the high art while Otavalo citizens were called as ‘useful Indians’.

Anyone who has ever been to the mountains must have thought about staying there forever. But after a few hours such peson started feeling the "charm" of unimaginable height and ran back to the native lowlands ... Is it possible to live permanently where it is sometimes difficult even to breathe?

Our journalist came back from Ecuador with unique experience and we share it with you. For the first time I was suspected of drug trafficking. Alone, in the country where there is no Ukrainian Embassy, I was standing and feverishly figuring out if someone could plant something on me on the way to the airport.

I admit, this is not an easy topic - to describe the kitchen, which has recently become the main one for me. Now I live in Ecuador and have not tasted cabbage rolls, dumplings and even black bread for a long time. Although, I confess, I cooked borsch several times. Someone else's kitchen initially surprises, then becomes cloying and only at the third stage of acquaintance with it, begins to open its secrets.

They say that Cuenca, the one in Ecuador, is the best city for loafing. And there is a good reason for that. About ten thousand pensioners-expatriates insist on that. They’ve concluded their working careers somewhere else in their motherlands and moved to spend deliberate senior years in this Latin American city that is spread on the way from the Andes to the coast of the Pacific.