Tourist specials in Ecuador

In my past few days in Ecuador, I've already started to experience something that I didn't experience elsewhere in my South American travels, and that I find extremely brash and insulting. For a million little things around here — for bus tickets, for set lunches, and even for bottles of water — Ecuadorians seem to believe in "special tourist prices". I had about three incidents, just today, where the seller quoted me one price, and then suddenly changed their mind and said: "hang on, actually it's $x more". And when I ask "why", they say: "well, the first price is only for locals — you're a tourist". Pr#$ks.