I picked the wrong place to look for a doctor. As well as having a perfect year-round climate, Vilcabamba has a reputation for having residents who live to a very old age and never get ill. No wonder half the town now consists of ex-pats from Europe and the USA who arrived and never left. There is health food and organic cafes on every corner, but the doctors are nowhere to be found because they are rarely required. I was trying to hunt one down after three month...

When I first arrived in Riobamba I was excited to find an attractive railway station right in the middle of town and was looking forward to continuing my journey south from it. I soon discovered that the station is closed for repairs, but I am going to forgive them in this case because next year will see the opening of the entire line from Quito to Guyaquil. This will be the way to see Ecuador, on a line that passes high through the Andes. I'm just sorry I'm a ye...

We reached the ice line at 1-55AM, and within half an hour were weaving our way between some magnificent ice structures that were stunningly beautiful in the light of the half moon and our head torches. If glaciers weren't continually on the move, I'm sure someone would have given names to these places such as the giant mushroom, or the church organ. We crossed two crevasses near here which made me glad that I was in the good hands of local climber Pablo, who had...

Acquiring decent maps is always a problem when trying to hike outside the UK (we don't know how lucky we are with Ordnance Survey). I've found maps from lots of different sources in the past, but this was the first time I had to visit a military establishment to get them. My passport had to be checked, photocopied and left at the gate before I could proceed. I then had a long wait while my selected maps were created on a large printer, checked, authorized with an...

About 10,000 people descend on Otavalo every Saturday from miles around. It is possibly the biggest indigenous market in South America. I had come quite a long way to see this too, on a long hard road full of pot-holes that none of the bus drivers seemed to notice, if you know what I mean. It's hard to believe that it was the same Panamericana Highway that I followed smoothly through Chile and Peru. The traffic looks very different here too, with many colourful c...