Charles Marie de la Condamine in the mid 1700s discerned the shape of the earth by measuring a degree of latitude on the equator just north of modern-day Quito. Hence Ecuador-equator. The first things that struck me was the liveliness of the place - more noise, music, colour; in the streets, on the buses, street vendors selling everything from soft drinks to miracle cures for every imaginable ailment, singing on the buses or recounting their personal tragedies for small change from sympathetic listeners.

The air refreshingly clear, arriving in Quito gives a first glimpse from above of a narrow but crammed city containing a blend of the old and new - plazas and churches galore from the Spanish era, modern high-rise in the new town where the youth are out to party every night. I hurried south initially, as I would return to Quito later, and wanted to meet up with a friend from my earlier travels in Cambodia.

An enjoyable week or so went by in the countryside, spent eating great local healthy food in Llullu Llama hostal (expansive views even from the compost toilet) and doing long day walks and/or precarious scrambles (depending on the detail provided by the somewhat ambiguous dutch-creation directions. Finally rising at ungodly hours of the morning to reach a high-altitude and bitterly cold but beautiful crater lake Quilotoa, and hitting the local market which sold everything from plastic pipe saxes to a range of farm and domestic animals to double-beds layed out on a basketball court.

From here-on down through the Andean countries, the women´s indigenous dress consists (with only slight variations) of raised bowler hat (varying colours and styles), waist-length black plaited pony tails, huge earrings and neck beads, layered alpaca sweaters with multi-cloured blanket wraps containing either babies or agricultural produce, long black hooped woolen skirts, black woolen socks and sandals. The men tend to wear jeans and tshirts.

Leaving the countryside for a while, we hit Riobamba, with the most amusing sight being the 6am view from the bedroom window - hundreds of "gringos" packed onto the roof of a cargo train destined to depart an hour later for the devils nose train-track switchbacks 100km down the tracks. No doubt sacrificing some impressive scenery and great engineering feats, I couldn´t face being hemmed in there with so many camera-toting tourists, who were themselves a tourist attraction for the amused villagers along the way.

Instead we escaped to a high-altitude middle of nowhere eco-lodge, its´ main characteristic being a lack of heating and light.  At least it was constructed from natural materials.. Down through a freshly-bulldozed road through the forest to a village, but didn't fancy the face painting in the only touristed indigenous tribal village.

Cuenca is a lovely southern city with a clear river running through (for once), grassy banks and trees. A couple of visits to the nearby Cajas National Park was rewarded with strange vegetation and masses of multi-coloured birds at altitudes between 3000 and 4500m.  A twitcher's heaven..

Finally, no visit to Ecuador would be complete without a financial splurge to visit the Galapagos islands.  Meaning saddleback, named after the giant turtle, the islands contain a huge variety of unique species like Darwin's finches, giant iguanas, turtles, giant frigate birds, blue-footed boobies, sally light-foot crabs, seals and sea lions, galapagos penguins, amongst others.  On the flight there I met a couple, the guy actually resembling a galapagos turtle, who'd worked with David Attenborough and the beeb recently on a big forthcoming documentary.  I bought his guidebook and set off to do my own research..  The tours are damned expensive; I ended up taking a few day trips to different islands, and did a dive to spot sharks, rays and the usual multitude of fish that maybe one day I'll be able to identify. My advice would  be to a) go during the breeding season; b) when the weather is largely clear with blue sunny skies, c) take your best zoom SLR camera and videocam and get in the picture with the animals to get an idea of scale (take someone with you to take your picture); and d) splash on a longer boat tour (7 days $1000 - money permitting..).    

Finally back in Quito, I visited the local prison (as you do) - a few Europeans are holed up there for 5 to 10 years for carrying coke across from Columbia.  You can pay for a higher level of comfort there, but still, the idea that they were banged up for one stupid decision in a way made me feel grateful for my liberty, being able to hop around from country to country, especially over the past year, with no restrictions.  I took a few telephone cards, and was given a couple of hand-made souvenirs, touching gifts from the young guys.  From here I headed down to Lima on what I had decided would be my last flight of the 12 month round-the-world ticket.  I still had plenty to see and do, and my Spanish needs much more work, so England will have to wait for a while longer...