the Quechua people

We then made the long journey from the little village of Salinas, back through Guarandas, to the city of Riobamba to catch a small van going to the small village of Guamote where we spent the night in an eco-lodge run by Belgians. We stayed in a dorm room with 10 beds, but there was only one other person in the dorm besides us. I stayed up chatting with the young Belgian innkeeper. We talked about the economy, people and traveling.

He described the indigenous people (Quechua) as very shy and hard to get to know, but also as friendly. He told me that after 8 months working with them, he only just felt as though he could joke with them. My experience with these people is that they mind their own business and never hold your gaze, but if you smile at them, they smile back. They seem to be very sweet people with a strong sense of family and of community. Perhaps they are shy because they descended from the very proud Incans, but have been beaten down so much by the white men over the last 5 centuries that they have forgotten who they are and are afraid of anyone outside of their own. I don’t know.