One of my good friends emailed me the other day and asked how did Ecuadorian people deal with the country’s currency being officially the USA dollar.
Here in Ecuador all the bills are USA bills – $1, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 US bills.
The coins are a mixture of both USA coins and Ecuadorian coins, used interchangeably. It’s always interesting to see familiar bills and coins here and be in the middle of South America.
Hand a USA quarter to the fare taker and you can ride a bus, trolley or light rail the length of Quito, Ecuador. The public transport is generally packed — I’ve yet to get a seat, but it’s quite cheap.
In the market, people will only accept bills $20 or lower. I’ve changed a couple of $50 bills in larger stores when I’ve purchased $20 or more.
One of the coins that is much more common here in Ecuador than in most of the USA, is the $1.00 coin pictured above. It is in common usage down here.
I took the above picture with the new Panasonic DSC-ZS3 10.1MP 12X zoom camera which I purchased to replace Megan’s camera. The more I use it, the more I am surprised at the results. While the quality isn’t as good as the Canon Rebel XSi DSLR camera, it is sometimes much easier to use and definitely NOT AS INTIMIDATING as the large lens which I generally use on the Rebel DSLR camera.
