“Gringas and Otavaleos — Changing Tourist Relations,” Lynn A. Meisch, Annals of Tourism Research, vol. 22, no. 2, 1995, pp. 441-62. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0160-7383(94)00085-9)
The author, who is at Stanford University, reports that:
This article examines the romantic and sexual next-term relations between young foreign women (gringas) and indigenous men (Otavaleos) in Otavalo, Ecuador. It argues that gringa-Otavaleo relationships represent neither First World dominance over Third or Fourth World people, nor tourism as an expression of patriarchy, but mutual fascination with, romantic misconceptions of, and sometimes economic exploitation of the other gender. The gringas are looking for noble savages and a pre-industrial utopia, while the Otavaleos want sex with a blonde…
(That’s an excerpt from the article “Boys Will Be Boys,” published in AIR 11:1.)