From top: Guide Amable Chachalo in front of Casa Museo Carangue; the interior of Hacienda Zuleta


A question of legacy Galo Plaza was known for his land reform policies, which returned substantial tracts of land to ancestral communities and paved the way for a resurgence of indigenous culture in Imbabura. In 1995, his family created the non-governmental, non-profit Galo Plaza Lasso Foundation to continue this legacy of cultural preservation. “As a family, we’ve always been sensitive to community problems,” says Margarita Plaza Pallares, Galo Plaza’s daughter, cradling a glass of wine next to one of the hacienda’s many fireplaces. As part of the foundation, Margarita’s


mother Rosario opened a workshop in the Zuleta area to celebrate the pre-Columbian tradition of embroidery. “When women are entrepreneurs, they make a change in society,” says Margarita. Here, they give lessons to visitors and create crafts to sell in the hacienda’s shop or through their businesses. We meet them at the Zuleta community


centre, where Indigenous people from the local village — who call themselves Zuleteños, settled here since the time of the Caranquis — gather on weekends and public holidays to sell wares. Hand-stitched goods are spread over stalls, the embroidered birds and vines bursting forth from crisp white cotton. “When I got pregnant, the money I earned from embroidery allowed me to finish my studies,”


34 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.CO.UK/TRAVEL


says Eliana Chicaiza, practically disappearing behind a profusion of embroidered flowers. The market is a riot of sound and colour.


A group from the local Sumak Sisaku dance school flit by in embroidered skirts and blouses, a peacock feather set into each hat, while stallholders hawk knitwear and wood carvings. Amable tells me that rather than buckling during the pandemic, the Zuleta community was reborn. “Many people from Quito came back to start businesses,” he says. “They saw more opportunity here.” One such entrepreneur is Alexis Rivera,


who has collected 35 Ecuadorian herbs into Wasikamak, a spirit he describes as an Andean Jägermeister. “I started this business during the pandemic,” he says, handing me a shot of warming liquor. His stall isn’t a usual fixture of the market — he’s here only for the public holiday — but his drinks are sold in shops around Zuleta. To make Wasikamak, Alexis macerates the herbs in alcohol for six weeks, then ages them for three months in American oak barrels. He claims that one of the ingredients, an Andean herb called sunfo, will help with my altitude sickness, but it makes the market blur instead. To clear my head, we travel further up into


the mountains. We pass women in alpaca-wool skirts, tilling fields; Amable knows each one by name. We stop at the Casa Museo Carangue,


a museum of Caranqui culture created and maintained by Amable himself, who ushers me into the adobe hut and closes the door. The sound of the wind fades to a murmur as a shaft of light illuminates the bones of a young Caranqui woman in a glass-topped urn. Amable pulls up a log stool and sits on it. “I started with a dream,” he says. His dream was to create a homage to


the Caranquis who lived in this area — the “common people”, as Amable says. He points at a row of pots that were once his grandmother’s. “When plastic arrived in Ecuador, people stopped using these,” he says, before describing how they were used to make chicha, a fermented corn drink. “I want people to have chicha every day,” he says. “I want to rescue these costumes, these traditions.” He walks over to the far wall and grabs a red wool poncho that belonged to his grandfather. Amable is — by any measure — a short man. But when he dons his grandfather’s poncho, standing in the museum that he created, he appears several inches taller.


HOW TO DO IT Double rooms at Hacienda Zuleta start at £296 per night, with discounts available for long stays or large groups. All excursions and activities, including visits to Condor Huasi and the Zuleta community, can be arranged through the hacienda. zuleta.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52