How do you sum up an entire country? It is certainly true that Ecuador is a country of boundless diversity and extraordinary beauty. It is blessed by nature’s considerable gifts: snowcapped volcanoes, sparkling blue lakes, lush emerald valleys and cool cloud forests harboring a multitude of spectacular bird and plant life.

You can travel in a day from sparkling Pacific beaches to tropical lowlands where bananas grow, to the Andes Mountains where llamas graze beneath volcanoes over 20,000 feet high and on to the edge of the mystical Amazon Basin. And don’t forget those enchanting islands of scientific lore, the Galapagos. Most people don’t even try to imagine such disparate-seeming parts as a whole. Indeed, it is easier to break the country down by regions and describe each separately, but I find it’s not the geography that makes this country so unique, but the people you meet and the experiences you have here.

Besides natural beauty, Ecuador holds a human diversity as rich and colorful as its geographic and biological bounty. More than a dozen distinct ethnic and language groups are recognized, and in each region people practice unique customs, create their own cuisine and maintain their cultural traditions.

Those traditions are not only alive in the country’s celebrations, such as Inti Raymi or the Easter processions, but in its daily comings and goings. At each little tienda, every neighborhood’s answer to the local shop; people gather around and chat. Life is not frantic and rushed, but full of pauses for conversation, a local treat or a song. During these precious moments, you really experience the culture, see what life is like and live the reality that is Ecuador.

Click here to download a PDF catalogue with more information about the country.