Carmen, 48, has spent most of her life selling fruit, but a dozen years ago she opened a hostel as another small source of income. At first, it was a convenient stop for tourists. Since the beginning of 2018, however, most of the guests are not travelling for fun, nor do they pay for their stay – they are fleeing Venezuela.

Carmen knows what Venezuelans are going through. “I grew up in the streets,” she says, describing her difficult youth. “They are good people, mothers and fathers. They are engineers, workers, carpenters. They are people like us.”

Over 3.7 million Venezuelans have left their country in recent years amid a political and economic crisis. More than 240,000 of them have found a new home in Ecuador.