Forty minutes later than scheduled, a bus hurtles along the narrow stretch of highway towards us. Ornaments light up the driver’s cabin, flashing LED´s surround the number plate and the details of the bus. As it breaks to a screeching halt, blue lights flash and illuminate one side of the bus. It stops and the driver lowers his window and shouts something inaudible over the Latino pop music coming from his cab. A quick glance to the faded letters across the side of the vehicle tells me everything I need to know. This is CIFA, our night bus to take us across the border.

The border crossing between Peru and Ecuador on the Pan American highway is, according to guide books, the most hazardous border crossing in South America.

This is because Peru´s immigration office is in Aguas Verdes and Ecuador´s is a few miles away in Huaquillas. CIFA buses drop us off at each office, take us through the smalls towns and over the bridge between the two countries. It then continues into Ecuador. Other companies drop you off at the border and then it is up to the traveller to make their way to the other office and then on to the bus terminal. It is here that reports of theft and rip-off taxi fares occur.

Because of the CIFA bus, our border crossing was simple and straight forward. I could not help but be thankful we had not been dropped off in these towms at night.

With all that sorted, we manage to get a fair few hours of sleep on the bus as we head to Guayaquil.

The next thing I know it is daylight. We are on the outskirts of the city and the bus has been crammed full of people. Every seat is occupied but now people fill the aisles. Still more people board as every conceivable space is taken. As it turns out, we discover that this is completely normal for buses in Ecuador.

You cannot complain as bus travel in Ecuador is so cheap. It costs about one US dollar per hour of travel. So a six hour journey will cost six dollars (less than four pounds). Guayaquil is Ecuador´s largest city and the stepping stone for the Galapagos Islands. Unfortunately, a trip to the Galapagos is out of our budget so we take our next bus to Puerto Lopez. As we wait in the appropriate place for our next bus to arrive, we look on in disbelief as a bus speeds around the terminal, almost hand brake turns and accelerates along another route. ´Hope that´s not us.´ I muse. We could not possibly have two crazy buses in such a short space of time.

It rounds another corner and hammers into the space a few inches from our nose. The words ´Puerto´ and ´Lopez´ are taped to the window. We are travelling with another English couple who were on the same flight as us from the UK. Becky is like our guide, handily planning our itinerary through Ecuador.

Also, I finally have someone to laugh at my fantastic gags and watch football with in the shape of Alex. We board the next bus together and arrive, unharmed, at our destination a few hours later.

Whales swim South along the Pacific Coast at this time of year. From Puerto Lopez we are able to head out on a boat and go whale watching. It is thrilling seeing humpback whales so close. At one point, a herd of four or five come close to the boat whilst shooting water from blowholes and sending their tails splashing into the water. On the same trip, we visit the Isla de la Plata. Here we see magnificent frigrate birds drumming their beaks on their huge red chests. We spot red footed boobies and my personal favourite, the blue footed boobies. When speaking to people who had been to The Galapagos, they said that their highlights were whales and blue footed boobies. Two species that we had seen on this trip for a fraction of the price.

It is a few hours bus drive to Quito. We stay in the old town at a hostel called Secret Garden. We chose this place as Tori and I often go to the fantastic festival in England with the same name.

However, the hostel is not great as the American volunteers working here are trying far too hard to be hip but succeeding only in being obnoxious. If you took The Libertines and put them in charge of a hostel, the result would probably be something like The Secret Garden in Quito. The location is great to explore the old city. It takes no longer a day to look round this area. There are some quirky cobbled streets and a huge cathedral. In the evening, the old city seems abandoned, so much so it borders on the unsafe.

The New City is the opposite. In the daytime there does not seem much to do or explore, but comes to life in the evenings with an abundance of restaurants, bars and clubs.

Our favourite place in Quito is the Guayasim museums. Set on a hill in two separate buildings, the museums house Guayasim´s works.

Guayasim is one of Ecuador´s most famous indigenous artists. The paintings are savage, dark and explore misery suffered by mankind. But the scale and harshness of the images is a treat to witness in the original context.

Quito is our base for exploring everywhere else in Ecuador. Otavalo features a huge Saturday market and is just a couple of hours from Quito.

Alex and I are unmoved when it comes to artisan markets as they all look the same to us. But the girls assure us it is worth the trip. I end up returning to Quito with a Charango. A small ten stringed guitar common in Ecuador and Peru.

The main tourist spot for Ecuadorian's is Banos. Banos is famed for hot springs. We checked them out one night and can confirm that they are indeed, very hot. Banos is at the foot of an active volcano. One night we go on an excursion to a view point to witness the volcano activity. We are picked up by a chiva, an open sided van made predominately of wood that drives very quickly and plays music very loudly. When we arrive at the viewing point we find the volcano is completely shrouded in cloud so we cannot see a thing. Still, travelling on the chivas is quite an experience. Chivas used to be a common form of transport in Ecuador, but today they are more commonly used for tourism.

We are stopped a couple of times a check points. When this happens every person has to alight from the bus and have their identification checked. It is the law to carry our passports at all times. This is quite a burden as I would much rather have them locked up in a safe in my hotel room.

The man in the window writes my name incorrectly as Blay Duncan and then waves me along. The patrolling army men do nothing but play around and wolf whistle at women as they pass. I would say something if it wasn't for the fact they are holding machine guns. It is not a particularly good image of the Ecuadorian military.

Before we leave Ecuador, we book an excursion to visit the Amazon jungle. A place I have always wanted to go.