Chota, Ecuador

The Quechua-speaking farmers and mestizo landowners live where there is rain for agriculture, more than 250 m. above the valley bottomlands higher up in the Andes mountains.

Their ancestors were brought here as slaves during the colonial period, particularly when many of the great sugar estates were owned and organised by the Jesuits.

Oral history claims almost all the black residents of the valley descend from the named list of 74 survivors of the trek, who arrived in 1775.

The river valley descends towards the coast after leaving the Chota and passes through cloud forest into coastal ecology that is much more humid.

Modern houses may have roofs of galvanized iron sheets, tejas (curved ceramic tiles) or other materials.

[3][4] The change in economy since 2000 has brought in many mestizo business-owners without providing much involvement or direct work for the traditional valley residents.