The Mira River originates in the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

of Ecuador and flows to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. For a few kilometers it forms the border between the two countries. The upper course of the Mira is called the Chota River and is notable for its

Afro-Ecuadorian Afro-Ecuadorians (), also known as Black Ecuadorians (), are Ecuadorians of predominantly Sub-Saharan African descent. History and background Most Afro-Ecuadorians are the descendants of enslaved Africans who were transported by predominantly B ...

inhabitants, its bomba music, and the large number of internationally prominent

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

players it has produced.

Course

High Andes. The most distant source of the Mira River may be Puruanta Lake, located at an elevation of in the

Cayambe Coca Ecological Reserve Cayambe Coca National Park is a national park in Ecuador located along the Equator about from Quito. The park encompasses an area of . The reserve The park includes two very different regions of Ecuador, the high altitude sierra with Cayambe (v ...

of northern Ecuador. The cities of Ibarra and Otavalo are in the upper

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

of the river which includes most of Imbabura and

Carchi Carchi () is a Provinces of Ecuador, province in Ecuador. The capital is Tulcán. The Carchi River rises on the slopes of Chiles (volcano), Chiles volcano and forms the boundary between Colombia and Ecuador near Tulcan. Rumichaca Bridge is the m ...

provinces. The borders of the two provinces run roughly along the course of the Mira. Chota River and Chota Valley. Several tributaries unite to form the Chota River north of the town of Pimampiro at an elevation of . The Chota valley, deep, but wide and fertile in places, extends along the river for about to the village of Concepcion at an elevation of Below the junction of the Chota and Piguchuela rivers, the river is called the Mira. The climate is semi-arid with precipitation on the valley floor as low as per year. Irrigation is necessary for most agriculture. The relatively low elevation (for the Andes) of the Chota Valley has resulted since prehistoric times in the valley being used to grow warm-climate and semi-tropical crops:

coca Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. Coca leaves contain cocaine which acts as a mild stimulant when chewed or ...

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

, chile peppers,

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

, and fruits. A class of traders called ''mindaeles'', exchanged the semi-tropical crops of the valley with the people of the Pais Caraqui chiefdoms of the surrounding higher and cooler elevations. Beginning in the 16th century, the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

introduced additional crops, especially

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...

s. and

grapes A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...

. Transition. A few miles north of Concepcion, the Mira begins its flow through a narrow, sparsely populated canyon bordered by forested uplands which persist to near the Colombian border, dropping in elevation over the course of from near Conception to . The Mira in this section and upstream in the Chota Valley is popular for

rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

and

kayaking Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving over water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits fac ...

as there are many Class III and IV rapids. Coastal. The Mira River is navigable for the it flows through

Nariño Department Nariño () is a department of Colombia named after independence leader Antonio Nariño. Its capital is Pasto. It is in the west of the country, bordering Ecuador and the Pacific Ocean. Nariño has a diverse geography and varied climate acc ...

of Colombia to the Pacific The Mira is joined by the San Juan River, a major tributary. This is a

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

region with only a small population devoted mostly to the cultivation of

bananas A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called pla ...

and

African oil Palm ''Elaeis guineensis'' is a species of palm commonly just called oil palm but also sometimes African oil palm or macaw-fat. The first Western person to describe it and bring back seeds was the French naturalist Michel Adanson. Jean-Marie Pelt, « ...

Afro-Ecuadorians, bomba, and soccer

African slaves were brought to Ecuador beginning in the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th century

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionaries owned most of the land in the Chota valley and imported Africans to work as slaves on their sugar cane plantations. By 1767, when the Jesuits were expelled from Latin America, the Jesuits owned 10 plantations and 1,769 slaves in the Chota valley. However, most of the Afro-Ecuadorians experienced little change with the departure of the Jesuits, continuing to be enslaved by the new owners of the plantations. Slavery was abolished in Ecuador in 1852 and most of the Afro-Ecuadorian residents of the Chota Valley became landless

sharecroppers Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

, a condition which continued until the late 20th century. The population of the Chota Valley in 1987 was almost entirely Afro-Ecuadorian concentrated in 10 to 15 villages and totaling less than 15,000. The surrounding highlands had a

mestizo ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturall ...

and

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

population. A few of the Afro-Ecuadorians obtained land after

Land Reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...

legislation in 1964, but in the early 21st century, the majority of Afro-Ecuadorians in the Chota valley were still impoverished and landless or nearly landless. The Chota valley is known for its bomba music which features African drums mixed with indigenous and Spanish influences. It has also become known as the origin of many of Ecuador's finest soccer players. The 2002 Ecuadorian team, which qualified for the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

, had seven Afro-Ecuadorians from the Chota valley on its 23-man roster. This despite the absence of grass soccer fields and training facilities for young players in the Chota valley.''Lonely Planet: Ecuador & the Galapagos Islands; (2006)'', Lonely Planet, 7th Edition, p. 134

References

External links

Water Resources Assessment of Ecuador
Other coordinates: {{Authority control Rivers of Ecuador Rivers of Colombia African diaspora in Ecuador

Ecuadorian Ecuadorians () are people identified with the South American country of Ecuador. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Ecuadorians, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source o ...

Geography of Ecuador International rivers of South America Colombia–Ecuador border Border rivers

Course

Afro-Ecuadorians, bomba, and soccer

See also

References

External links