Beauty in diversity

IT sits in a small corner in northern South America, 20,000km and multiple time zones away on the other side of the world, but Ecuador has a few things in common with Singapore, not least of which are a tropical climate (at sea level, anyway) and yes, the Equator, that imaginary line at latitude 0 degrees running around the centre of the planet.

In theory, it would be possible to dig a hole from Singapore through the earth's core and end up in Ecuador - although flying there would be a lot faster. Singapore's location just north of the Equator also means that unlike Ecuador, it isn't able to build tourist sites featuring Equator museums and monuments with lines on the ground marking the centre of the world. Instead, we will have to make do with the Merlion.

A trip to South America requires commitment and ideally a sense of adventure on the part of the traveller. While Ecuador probably isn't going to be the first country on the continent you visit, perhaps it ought to be. For a country that is roughly the size of New Zealand and home to about 14 million people, the sheer diversity on offer is impressive (admittedly the food isn't world class yet but it's improving all the time).