The Valley - Awake!In 1946, John Collier, Jr. and Aníbal Buitrón wrote The Valley of Awakening, telling the story of a social miracle occurring in Ecuador - in the valley at the foot of Tiata Imbabura. . (1, cover) In 1993, forty-three years later, I set foot in this same region and discovered a valley, not awake, but awake! My son, Matt, and I were traveling by bus, north of Quito, on our way to Colombia. (4) We were advised to be in Otavalo for a weekend to discover the famous market. Little did we know that this trip would lead to many other trips and special relationships with the inhabitants of this valley located high in the Andes. Ecuador, one of the smallest and most pristine countries in South America, owes its name to its geographical location. - straddling the equator. (6, p. 59) The Andes divide into two parallel ranges in Ecuador – the West and the East, which run like twin spines from north to south. The valley in which most Ecuadorians live and where most of the agricultural products of the mountain areas are grown extends for approximately four hundred kilometers. Around thirty volcanoes serve as a fence to the valley on either side. The deep river valleys (hoyas) are home to agricultural communities whose way of life appears to have remained unchanged for centuries. (6, p. 64) A book written by Linda A. Newsom, Life and Death in Early Colonial Ecuador, and edited by Mary AY Gallagher, (2) begins with a study at or just before the time when the Ecuadorian sierra was started to develop. be incorporated into the Inca Empire (around 1460). It describes in detail what can be deduced about the pre-conquest population of the regions of Ecuador: the Sierra, the coast and the Oriente. She then describes the disastrous impact of the Inca penetration and partial conquest of Ecuador, as well as the prolonged wars still being fought there when the Spanish brought an abrupt end to Ecuador's early colonial period and triggered a new series of invasions which subjugate and “reduce” the indigenous population. population for several years. This history, mixed with the invasion of the Incas and the Spanish, had a great impact on this small country..