Here is more than you ever wanted to know about the Sacagawea dollar. Yep, they mostly ended up in Ecuador. And here I was, with my outdated middle-school education, thinking that I would have to convert my Brazilian reais into sucres or some other outrageously inflated currency, and that prices would all be given in thousands. I said I needed some Ecuadorean money for the taxi from the airport. The guy said, oh he will accept dollars. I thought well sure, maybe taxi drivers take them because it’s convenient but it turns out that since 2000, the US$ is THE currency of Ecuador, and the folks down there are especially fond of our Sacagaweas. I thought I’d try black and white for a change, since I’ll have to put out daily black and white strips when I get rich and famous and syndicated. (Snort!)
I was reading a http://sethinecuador.blogspot.com/ the blog of a young lad spending some time in Ecuador, and he reports that the Ecuadoreans just assume that Sacagawea was one of them. I can't explain the vibe you get off the folks down there whenever they handle a Sacagawea dollar. It's just a microsecond of tenderness that you don't pick up on for the other denominations of coin, either Ecuadorean or USA.