Shops and bakeries are diversifying by providing pop-up currency-exchange services. A ticket seller at a roadside bus terminal moonlights as a money changer, buying dollars at 2,800 pesos and selling them to banks at a rate of around 3,200, making a handsome profit for little effort.
Not everyone is happy. Residents of La Hormiga accuse shopkeepers of price-gouging. Mr Palacios has urged local merchants to show restraint. “I told them that if they keep raising prices the Ecuadoreans will shop elsewhere and locals will, too,” he says.
Retail tourism is also a worry for Ecuador’s government. The country adopted the dollar as its currency in 2000 to escape from hyperinflation. Its current strength, along with weak productivity and low prices for oil, Ecuador’s biggest export, helped make the economy contract by an estimated 0.6% in 2015. Colombia, by contrast, grew by around 3% last year and should grow by more than 2% in 2016 despite the oil slump, in part because its weaker currency is expected to boost non-oil exports.
To fight the downturn, Ecuador’s government is calling on its citizens to shop at home. “Prefer what’s ours,” pleaded a government statement issued in September. As long as the dollar is strong, many Ecuadorean shoppers will prefer Putumayo