Ecuador: high-altitude Quito, the middle of the world and the Galápagos
I'd done Argentina, I'd done Chile, and I figured I knew the Andes well enough to skip the warnings. Ecuador set me straight on day one. You land in Quito at around 2,850 metres, and the altitude doesn't ask for your opinion: I climbed one flight of stairs at the hotel, set my bag down, and had to sit on the bed like a man who'd just run a marathon. Welcome to the roof of the equator.
The trick everyone gives you turns out to be true — go slow the first day, drink water until you're sick of it, lay off the alcohol and the big meals. So I wandered the old town at the pace of a Sunday grandfather: the colonial churches, the squares, the smell of fresh bread and engine fumes, and a cup of coca tea that I'm still not sure did anything but felt deeply ceremonial. By the evening my head had stopped pounding and Quito had quietly won me over.
One foot in each hemisphere
You can't come this far and not do the touristy thing, so I took a taxi out to the Mitad del Mundo, the monument that marks the equator just north of the city. Yes, it's a bit of a circus — souvenir stalls, the obligatory photo with one foot in the northern hemisphere and one in the south. I did the photo. I did it twice. Standing on the line of latitude zero, dead centre of the planet, with the Andes stacked up around you — corny or not, I got a little shiver, and I sent the picture to my brother before I'd even left the plaza.
« One foot north, one foot south, and full bars — that's the only place on Earth you can caption a photo that honestly. »
And the caption was honest, because in Quito the connection is genuinely fine. 4G across the city held up well for me — maps, ride-hailing, sending photos, the lot. That's worth knowing, because the moment you leave the capital the story changes, and I want to be straight with you about it: this is Ecuador, not a guarantee of bars. Practical detail you'll appreciate — the currency here is the US dollar, the real thing, so no mental conversion gymnastics and ATMs hand you crisp greenbacks.
The Galápagos, and the silence of no signal
Then came the part I'd flown across a continent for: the Galápagos. And here's where I'll be honest, because pretending otherwise would be a disservice — out on the islands, signal is patchy to non-existent. In the main towns you'll catch something; on a boat, on a trail, snorkelling off a beach, you get nothing, and that's exactly as it should be. You don't argue with a giant tortoise about your data plan.
The wildlife genuinely does not care that you exist, which is the whole magic. Giant tortoises plodding across the highlands like slow-moving boulders. Blue-footed boobies doing their absurd little courtship dance, feet bluer than any filter could fake. Sea lions sprawled across the docks and the benches as if they'd paid rent. It's a protected national park, so you book your excursions or your cruise ahead and you go with licensed guides — that's not red tape, that's the reason it's still this extraordinary. I put the phone in the dry bag and didn't miss it once.
Down into the green
On the way back I tacked on a few days in the Amazon basin, and the connectivity lesson repeated itself, in capital letters: out in the rainforest, you're off the grid, full stop. I'd warned my family, downloaded my maps, told people not to worry if I went quiet — and then I let the river and the howler monkeys take over. Coming back into a town with a bar of signal, the phone buzzing awake with three days of messages, felt almost violent after that much green.
📶 Romain's tip
Set your eSIM up before you land in Quito, so the city's good 4G is working the second you clear the airport — that's when you want maps and a ride. But go in clear-eyed: the connection is solid in Quito, thin in the Galápagos, and basically absent in the Amazon, so download offline maps and tell your people you'll go quiet out there. Check your phone's compatibility in 30 seconds here and find your Ecuador plan on the destinations page. (Tacking a European leg onto the same trip? Your EU/EEA roam-like-at-home already covers European plans — see the Europe options — but that doesn't apply here, Ecuador is well outside it.)
What I take away
Ecuador packs an absurd amount into a small country: a capital in the clouds, the literal middle of the world, an archipelago where the animals run the show, and a rainforest that swallows you whole. The connectivity mirrors the geography — generous in the city, sparing everywhere wild — and once I stopped fighting that and started preparing for it, the quiet bits became the best bits. Set up smart in Quito, then let the islands and the jungle take your signal. They give you something better in exchange.
— Romain, somewhere on the equator, both feet finally on the same side.