This series will go country by country through my two-year trip. I plan on sharing some experiences, thoughts, and photos of each country that I visited.

Country by Country 25: Ecuador

I spent close to 3 months in Peru. While there, I decided to go to Portland Oregon for the summer. It was spring when I was in Peru so I decided to use all of the time on my Peruvian visa, then visit Ecuador for a month. When my Peruvian visa was close to expiring, I took a bus north and crossed the border.

The contrast between Peru and Ecuador was fairly stark. Peru looks like a giant desert when you travel in the coastal half of the country. It seemed like everything turned green and lush as soon as the bus crossed the border. I stayed in Guayaquil for a night in a highrise hotel. It made me nervous because a big earthquake had happened a few weeks earlier. The next day I took a bus to Montanita where I stayed for a couple of weeks.

Here are a few photos of Montanita.

Montanita is a nice coastal, tourist town. They had lots of western food to choose from. Having lived outside of my country for 10 years, I was grateful for the North American food.

This is one of the main tourist streets.

This is a big disco in Montanita. The whole town looked like a "spring break" type of place. The timing gods were on my side and things were fairly quiet when I was there. There were minimal amounts of spring-breaker-types.

I was at a restaurant and this truck pulled up and started doing karaoke, very loudly. I have no idea why.

This is a food vendor on the street. Ceviche is usually made from raw sea animals that are pickled (or cooked) in lime juice. No heat is used, usually. In Ecuador, it all gets mixed up with tomatoes, onions, and coriander (cilantro).

This is a shrimp ceviche. The shrimp are actually boiled beforehand, otherwise, they get too rubbery if you only use the lime juice. I know that ceviche was invented in Peru, but I prefer Ecuadorian style. Tons of vegetables and a little bit of spice. In Peru, it was mostly big pieces of fish and giant corn. I've always thought that ceviche would be a huge hit in Vietnam.

I also had arepas in Ecuador. I first had arepas in Venezuela. I know that they're also popular in Colombia, but my Venezuelan friends weren't impressed with the Colombian arepas. These are basically pancakes or bread patties that are made on a grill, then split down the middle and filled with food. I liked the cheese ones the best. The red stuff is very bright hot sauce.

Another shot of one of the main tourist areas.

This photo isn't very good, but at night all of the power and telephone lines would be covered in birds. I've never seen this many birds return to the same place every night.

This happened while I was in Montanita and it was probably the best and most enjoyable fireworks display I've ever attended. A guy put on a bull-shaped thing that was full of fireworks. Then he ran into the crowd, raining fire on everyone. The sound that you hear in the background isn't a bunch of chickens, it's everyone (myself included) giggling uncontrollably.

I left Montanita after a couple of weeks and took a taxi to Cuenca. The taxi wasn't much more expensive than the bus and it was a lot more comfortable. I still don't know why I went to Cuenca. There really wasn't much to do once I got there. Here are a few photos.

The taxi driver stopped at a banana stand for some snacks.

They had all kinds of bananas that I'd never seen before.

This is Cuenca.

This is a church in Cuenca.

This is a door on a church in Cuenca.

That's about it for Cuenca.

From Cuenca, I made my way to Quito to catch my flight to Portland, Oregon. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this city. The people seemed nice and it had a cool, younger vibe to it. Here are some of my Quito photos.

This is a random street in Quito.

This is a big church in Quito.

There was a heavy metal concert happening when I went out walking.

This is another random street. I love the mural on the upper wall.

A tourist area in Quito.

They have some interesting buildings in Quito. To me, there seemed to be a 70's vibe happening in Quito.

This was close to an Indian restaurant that I went to. The food was pretty good. This building seems weird to me, I love it.

A random street in Quito.

I've already done a Quito Street Art post. I won't be reposting those photos, but I do want to show some of the cool, weird, art and graffiti that I saw in Quito.

An artistic airplane that was in a park.

This place had a ton of murals.

This whole area was covered in murals.

WOW! That's exactly what I said.

I wish I had seen these when they were fresh.

This one seems a little lazy to me, but it is pretty weird.

I may have already published this on Steemit, but it's so weird I had to include it. All I can tell is someone got their arm bitten off, and there's like a tree with fish in it? And a robot friend? What?

Quito had some incredible street art. Make sure you check out my Quito street art post if you want some more great weird art.

After about a month, I left Quito for Portland, Oregon, USA. My plan was to spend the summer there and to be closer to my family. Soon after arriving, I knew it was time to hang up my traveling shoes. I decided to get an apartment and see how non-traveling life would treat me.

This concludes my Country by Country series. I hope you've enjoyed the series. Keep an eye on my blog because I will be starting a new series about a recent trip to Vietnam with Hive account@doctorcrypto. Stay tuned for that in a day or two.