Travel inspiration: Why Ecuador and its food and wildlife is the trip of a lifetime

An iguana in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. Photo / Getty

While we're forced to stay put, it's the perfect time to look back at the travels that made us who we are. This week, Maggie Wicks recalls Ecuador's blue-footed boobies and smooth criminals.

In 2006, I was 25 years old and single.

Or at least, about to be single. I had a boyfriend - and a nice one at that. But all I wanted was to travel.

I had chosen Ecuador. It was compact and yet seemed to contain the whole world - rainforests, cities, beaches, culture, interesting food and wildlife. I hadn't learnt about it in school, I didn't speak any Spanish, and I didn't know anyone who had been there. It was perfect.

I don't remember ever inviting my boyfriend to come with me. Travelling alongside someone felt like a compromise to me. This was my trip - I wanted full say on everything. I wanted to go alone.

I had travelled solo once before. When I was 19, I took three months to claim my birthright in the UK. It had ended in a basement squat in London, calling home collect, waiting for a spare flight out of Heathrow, broke, lonely, homesick, and completely in love with travel.

An indigenous woman, dancing in a colorful traditional dress at Corpus Christi parade, Ecuador. Photo / Getty

Now with a degree and a couple of years' work experience under my belt, I was taking off, with no return date.

I travelled night and day, and in and out of weeks, and Ecuador brought adventure after adventure my way. I pierced my nose, I saw a tarantula in a hostel awning, I spent a month in the beautiful highland town of Cuenca exploring catacombs and studying Spanish, and I danced with other students in salsa clubs where the men would whisper, "Hey, mummy" in our ears.

I met a Swiss man who took me for my first dinner at a posh restaurant. There were no prices on the menu, and the waiter draped a starched serviette across my lap and the khaki-coloured zip-off Kathmandu trousers I had saved up to buy.

At the Galapagos Islands, I saw mounds of sleeping sea lions piled three high. There were blue-footed boobies dancing and frigate birds flirting, and iguanas swimming - they can dive over 10m and hold their breath for an hour, but here they do breaststroke, to keep their eye on the tourist boats. On land, you could step on one if you weren't careful. I learnt a lot about the travel industry there too. I saw a tourist kick sand towards a seal pup, I saw raw waste dumped into the sea.

Every day was a wonderland. Every day was new. Everything was delicious. I fully embraced fried chicken, chips with mayonnaise, and sprinkling sugar on to my fruit. My Kathmandu zip-offs were fit to burst.

It wasn't all smooth sailing. On my second to last day in Ecuador, I had a late-breaking urge to tick off some tourist attractions. I set out alone to visit the Cuidad Mitad del Mundo, where you can stand with one foot in both hemispheres at once.

Near the central bus depot - always a shifty place, no matter where you are in the world - on a crowded sunny street, I found myself curiously, bizarrely, covered in mustard, the cheap runny kind that is squeezed from a plastic bottle. A kind-seeming man stopped me, and pointed out that my bag and trousers and hair were slathered in the stuff.

He led me into a restaurant where people were eating with their families, and handed me pile after pile of paper napkins to clean myself off. There was a flurry of activity around me - men coming and going, wiping me down, helping to clean my bag, clearing napkins and bringing more. And at some stage, my backpack on the chair next to me, containing almost everything I had, was no longer mine. It was a similar size and shape, but it was so covered with mustard, that I had failed to notice it was a different bag entirely. The crowd disappeared.

My bag was gone, and along with it my camera, its memory cards, my iPod, credit card and journal. All my photographs, and all my notes, of the most important trip I had ever taken. In a crowded restaurant, there were no witnesses to the crime, and without my bag, no witnesses to my adventure. I felt very lonely. Tear- and mustard-stained, I stumbled through Quito until I found my hostel.

I was left reeling. It was a non-violent but scary assault. It knocked my confidence, and for a time, sent me inside of myself.

But I had my health, and my passport. Two days later I took my planned flight to Peru, a little wiser, and a little wearier, but determined to continue.

I never got to stand on both hemispheres at once. But I've never been a box ticker, I don't have any time for bucket lists.

For me, those months in Ecuador were truly the trip of a lifetime - with all the good bits and the bad bits that travel can throw at you. It was a complicated, incredible, life-changing journey.