In my recent fieldwork in Ecuador, last April, I had the opportunity to visit three different areas of the country that in the last decades have been characterized by massive emigration. In each place, I was able to walk around, observe, meet returned migrants, key informants, have all sorts of occasional encounters. After talking to migrants living in Europe for many years, I was eventually able to move “up the river” to the spring of the human flows I had been studying at the opposite side. Lots of questions were buzzing in my mind: what was the impact of all these people leaving for so long? What would happen with the migrants that did return at last? Had they been able to fulfil what seems to be the most enduring and resilient imaginary –spending some years abroad, building a house and going back home?