Straddling the equator (in Spanish: “ecuador”) this country occupies a small wedge on the western coast of South America. Two parallel ranges of the Andes Mountains divide the country into three distinctly different regions: the Andean Highlands, the Pacific Lowlands, and the tropical Amazon Basin Jungles.

Each of them offered its own natural attributes, its own weather, its own groups of acclimated tribes. Because of the considerable contrast in climate and environment, the people who lived in each of the regions differed greatly in their dress, work, and lifestyle.

I was fortunate to be able to travel in all three regions, and to visit tribal members in each of them.

Yet, in spite of the dissimilarities, I sensed that there was a single uniting thread that seemed to run throughout all the people - a link to their historic past, to their Inca ancestors.