Ecuador

Gimme some advice!

Do you know of any people / places / hotels / restaurants / bars / guides / resources in this country that you think would be unmissable?

I desperately need your advice, tips and recommendations. What's more, I have a memory like sliced slurry, and whatever you tell me in a drunken fug by the Thames is already gone: I need it written down.

Stick your advice in the comments - pleasepleaseplease, and I'll add it onto this main post as soon as I hit a country with a proper broadband connection...

Cheers, me dears...

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I'll be in Quito, doing a six week spanish language course, and living with Ecuadorians who only speak spanish to me, so I'll want lots of weekend trips to places; that's from September 2006 till mid October.
Then Galapagos, for two weeks of diving and stuff.
Then Vilcabamba, on the way down towards Peru and the Amazon route north, during October 2006:

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Sal and Jen separately suggest the apparently paradisal Vilcabamba. Deal.