Leaving Ecuador

In Ecuador, we learned how to avoid being overcharged on buses. (Confronted with linguistically compromised gringos and the chance of a few easy centavos, many conductors would submit to temptation.)

The technique went thusly:

1. Consult the Footprint guide to get estimate of price.

2. Ask locals what the cost of the journey is: "Disculpe Senor(a). ¿Cuanto cuesta a INSERT DESTINATION HERE?" If too timid to talk to locals, watch how much they give to the conductor carefully.

3. Having learnt the precio, get the correct money ready and when the conductor comes up slap it into his hand and say "Para dos," oozing confidence.

4. Say "Gracias" and turn to face the window, or bury nose in book.

On our penultimate bus in Ecuador, down from the rain-sodden streets of Andean Cuenca to the sweltering heat of coastal Machala, we employed the technique - now well honed - and settled in for the long trip. Before long, a clutch of locals were nestled wobblingly between our legs; the bus was the busiest we have been on before or since - there was not an inch of space. I could not see the cloudforest out of the window, but could feel the crackly rise in humidity that announced it. A couple of seats away, one of the cutest kids we have yet encountered, hair forced by beaming father into a sticky side parting, shouted the sweaty hours away.

Machala bus station. A kid walked round with a three-litre bottle of water, flimsy cups stashed in his black plastic bag; a few glugs for a few centavos. He had a couple of takers. Meanwhile, beside us in the waiting room, a baseball-capped chap slumbered jerkingly.

Then we were on the bus and waiting - "Vamos! Vamos! Vamoooos!" shouted a couple of passengers, banging on the window. (This is standard practice in South America. I cannot imagine shouting, "Let's go! Come on! Let's go!" at a bus driver in England; but I confess to joining in with the locals a couple of times over here.)

And so ended our time in Ecuador. Our border crossing was trouble free: the bustly female conductor rushed us through Ecuadorian immigration, flirting with the two police officers cacklingly, and a wily kid helped us out filling in forms on the Peruvian side; we both gave him a well-deserved dollar.

We were in Ecuador for 50 days - the longest I have ever spent in another country. We tracked bears, climbed volcanoes, abseiled down waterfalls, damned ourselves to hell (by drinking alcohol on a holy day), got confused by a jam that promised to make you strong, were amused by some incredibly ineffectual guard dogs, failed to balance an egg on a nail at the centre of the world, fell slightly in love with our bear-tracking cook's daughter. And wielded flaming machetes.

Peru has been wonderful and Bolivia, where we have just arrived, promises to be similarly great. But I still often think about the little country where campesinos go on five day and five night puro benders; where the cars meander about the road in a snaky motorcade, ignoring lanes, vehicles, cliff-edges, sanity; where Saved By The Bell gets dubbed into Spanish - including the outtakes at the credits - for the pleasure of bus-journeyers; and where omnipresent pink-and-blue shellsuited Yogotas men sell ice creams from the huge plastic drums hanging at their stomachs.

And the guards lolling against walls outside department stores have guns bigger than your leg; and on every wall, inside and outside, is a huge beneficent Jesus, staring languidly down; and in every hamlet and every village and every town and every city is a volleyball court, or five, or fifty; and in every bus station the conductors roam the floor yelling, over and over, "Quito. Quito, Quito. Quito, QuitoQuitoQuitoQuito, QUITOQUITOQUITO!".

Here is a picture of a pig and a cat.