Cultural character
Ecuador's name literally means "the equator", and the old town of its capital, Quito, is one of the very first sites inscribed as World Cultural Heritage — the gilded altars of its Spanish colonial churches framed against Andean snow peaks. The whole country is pieced together from four worlds: the Pacific coast, the Andean highlands, the Amazon rainforest and the Galápagos Islands. The Indigenous Quechua culture thrives in the highland markets, and the textiles and Andean panpipe music of Otavalo's Saturday market are famous across South America; people wear locally made toquilla straw hats — the "Panama hats" the world knows — and at festivals, colourful costumes, masks and brass bands parade through the mountain towns in great festivity. Guayaquil, the largest port, shows another flavour of the coast with its seafood rice and fried plantains.
