Direct contact with tourism has stayed limited for Otavalo's farmers — what they've mostly felt is its effect on prices. Shops charge more now that tourists pay more easily, and the old habit of haggling, once normal even between neighbours, is fading as sellers learn to simply wait for a tourist willing to pay full price.
Farming itself hasn't scaled up to meet tourist demand — yields are too modest for major market sales, with most production going toward the community's own needs and only occasional surplus reaching the market. Restaurants and hotels do better out of tourism directly, as does the local leather trade, much of which is processed here for both tourists and export.
Through their own organisation, UNORCAC, farmers have started experimenting with something more direct: hosting groups of tourists, including a group from Spain who stayed a week with local families. The results surprised everyone — both sides came away calling it one of the best experiences of their trip.
Many stories were exchanged, mutual respect increased. Most tourists thought this was the best holiday they had had so far.
The hope is to build on that, using the income to supplement farming and improve agricultural production directly — particularly irrigation, given that water shortage remains the community's biggest constraint. Whether more money brings more materialism is a question they don't dodge; it's probably inevitable to some degree, though television and radio are already doing plenty of that work regardless of tourism.
What they'd ask of tourists is straightforward: learn something about where you're going before you arrive, and take the time to actually get to know the area, its people, and its nature. For their part, they're training local guides in medicinal plants and local flora and fauna, and expanding the list of protected forest areas worth visiting.
“Give us some time,” they add. “This is an unfamiliar way of spending time for us — we don't really have a concept of recreation. In our culture, we recreate while we work, walking the sheep or picking blueberries.”