Surprising as it may seem, we've survived both the first three weeks of married life and the fact that over two of those have been virtually solely in each other's company. Needless to say, we now feel the need to communicate with others, which makes you lot the lucky recipients of our outpourings (mine on this occasion at least). Read on to get a flavour of our best and worst moments so far, plus a few Ecuadorian surprises the Lonely Planet hadn't quite prepared us for...

Top Moments

5. Working out which constellations we could see from the mountainside hot tub at our honeymoon retreat, Casa Mojanda, near Otavalo in northern Ecuador, feeling replete after a delicious home-cooked supper, looking forward to a cosy night by the open fire in our little cottage. Needless to say we've become accustomed to a somewhat different standard of living since leaving there...

4. Our first glimpse of the Cuicocha crater lake of Cotocachi volcano, 200m below the cliff edge we were standing on. Not only was this a stunning view down onto the lake, but also across the valley beyond to the other mountains, all a patchwork of fields to impossibly high altitudes. Apart from the view, it was also a moment not unlike mile 14 of the London Marathon going into the Docklands, when you get a sense of the effort still required to reach the homeward stretch - we could see the entirety of the cliff walk around the lake's edge that would take us another 3½ hours or so to get around... little did we know then of the hiking efforts we would sign up to for the following week.

3. Reaching the rocky summit of Pasochoa, 4200m, surveying the 360° view of two valleys enclosed by the Andes. We could see southern Quito sprawling up the sides of the hills and the startlingly clear snow-capped summits of three of Ecuador's highest peaks, amongst others. Given this was the first of our 4 ever-higher summit attempts of last week, it was not a little daunting to get such a clear picture of others on our itinerary (Guagua Pichincha at 4781m, Iliniza Norte at 5125m and the biggie, Cotopaxi at 5897m or 19000 feet. To give a sense of scale, Mont Blanc is 4,807m, but clearly not as near to the Equator as these boys).

2. Overwhelming relief at seeing a ghostly figure descending to meet us on a never-ending rocky ridge we'd been climbing for 2½ hours with full packs on, in sleet and 10m visibility. This meant a) we had actually been going in the right direction after all and b) we were minutes away from warmth (so we thought) and blessed relief from aching limbs and tired shoulders.

1. Every time we remember that we've only been here 2½ weeks and we have a good number of months left before work even becomes a recognisable word in our vocabulary!

Choosing the worst moments to share with you has been somewhat harder - there've certainly been plenty, but our top five are below.

5. Steve realising our idyllic honeymoon hideaway, Casa Mojanda (thoroughly recommended), was vegetarian...and yes folks, he made it through FOUR DAYS of just organic fruit and veg.

4. Steve discovering that, on top of finding the TV room door locked when he stumbled out of bed at 4:45am to watch England-Sweden, he had missed the boys beating Argentina 1-0 to boot. By the time he discovered the scores for Nigeria and Denmark from an over-friendly American tourist, who clearly couldn't tell we were in no fit state for chirpy conversation after 10 hours of climbing (see worst moment no. 1), he was resigned to missing England's every victory and having no one who cared with whom to share his pain...

3. Realising that the chipper Canadian climbers at the Iliniza Norte mountain refuge were much better equipped than we could ever hope to be - and there were we thinking we had everything (all matching too - extreme embarrassment when we realised we looked like twins). We watched enviously as each passing half an hour resulted in a new piece of kit, mostly North Face, appearing from their voluminous packs. Meanwhile, we stoically continued our game of scrabble, huddled in our flimsy sleeping bags, each with 5 layers of clearly not technical enough clothing on...Pity us, but pity the Sydney-sider who was with us, Andrew, more - at least 'cold and wet' is a well-known phrase in English vocabulary!

2. Getting off the plane to Quito at the departure gate, passing Steve to the hands of waiting paramedics in case his sudden attack of shivers, cold sweats and nausea turned out to require more serious medical attention. This moment was closely followed by the one later that evening, once Steve was safely snoring in Miami airport's hotel, when the disinterested baggage man told me they'd lost our bags and could I come back in 30mins in case they found them. The biggest surprise was that they did. Hooray for happy endings!

1. Realising that, at 50 vertical metres from the summit of Cotopaxi, no amount of tepid, sweet tea or frozen chocolate would get us to the top before the 08:30am cutoff after which the journey down becomes too dangerous. This was truly breaking point for both of us, beaten by 6½ hours of struggling uphill with iceaxe and crampons, mostly in darkness, against winds gusting up to 60mph (we think) and temperatures as low as -10° Celsius resulting in 5mm thick ice coating us and our equipment from head to toe (I had a nice line in ice moulded outerwear - from a full 5mm thick replica of my jacket hood to perfectly formed ice buckles, all of which were still intact 1000m lower and two hours later - walking in sunshine). To top it all, we couldn't even get good photos due to cloud cover! Definitely an experience we won't forget in a hurry. The hills around Banos, where we are now, will have to wait a good few days until our legs can cope with more than a single flight of stairs.

That must be it I hear you say, but what you don't realise is that internet time is cheap as chips out here (cheaper in fact) so I could go on for hours! I won't do that, but more than the best and worst moments, we've discovered a few secrets of Ecuador yet to be included in the Lonely Planet - a flavour of them are below.

* What is it about less developed countries and car horns? Here, it seems to mean everything from "Look at me, I'm about to attempt a death-defying uphill overtaking manoeuvre in my 18^th century bus with a lorry coming towards me" to "Even though you're just sitting by the street, I must let you know I'm here in case you suddenly decide to cross the road".

* Cows. Grazing everywhere, but mostly not in fields where you'd expect them to be.

* Yes, everyone says that Spanish is a necessity for Latin America. But does anyone tell you that even 'muy mas despacio' (much more slowly) spoken local Spanish is an unintelligible babble of indistinguishable words, none of which correspond to the words in phrase books or dictionaries that one expects to hear in response to well-rehearsed questions? In a word, no.

* New mothers here eat nothing but guinea pig for 2 weeks after giving birth. Apparently it promotes production of copious, extra tasty milk.

* You can eat a delicious, filling meal for 1.25 USD - soup, barbecued chicken, rice, chips (always 2 carbohydrates here) and a coke. definitely our best value yet.

* Even a non-Spanish speaking gringo can get his hair shaved off for 2USD, and growing a goatee is free...

Hasta luego (until next time)

Annabel & Steven, Intrepid, Identikit Explorers