Sacagawea Dollar: King of Currency in Ecuador

Miamiherald.com/By Jim Wyss
QUITO ECUADOR

Busy selling fruits and vegetables on a recent weekday, Luzmila Mita dug into her apron and pulled out a fistful of coins embossed with the image of a Native American woman with a baby strapped to her back.

“I always thought she was one of us,” said Mita, as she looked at the image of Sacagawea, the 18th century Shoshone woman who was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. “It took me a long time to know she was from up there.”

“Up there” is the United States, where the U.S. Mint has been producing Sacagawea dollar coins since 2000. And even as the coins have lost their luster in the United States, they’ve been embraced in Ecuador, where they’re preferred over paper money.

On the streets of this small South American nation, which adopted the dollar in 2000, Sacagawea is ubiquitous — and something of a kindred spirit in a country where many have indigenous roots. Read Article

THINKING OF MOVING TO ECUADOR – THIS IS ONE BOOK THAT IS A MUST READ