The end.

My very last blog post. Permit me to get a little cheesy here as with a lump in my throat I try and sum up our amazing adventure. Here goes.

Seven months, eleven countries. The highest mountains, the most beautiful seas, sparkling lakes, myriad flowers. Humming birds, southern right wales, mountain gorillas, elephants and lions. Music. Street parties, African singing that made our hair stand on end and tears fill our eyes, South American rhythms forcing our feet into action. Remote villages, camera shy children, old men with heavy loads and kind smiles, con artists, crowded buses.

We've travelled thousands upon thousands of miles, eaten hundreds of delectable meals and met people who have shown us immeasurable kindness. We have shared memories that will last forever and a sense of perspective on our own lives that we will endeavour to employ to good ends.

We were happy - every day - even when floods stopped our progress and when we were stranded in places we never meant to go. We were free - to go where we wanted, when we wanted and to change our plans at the last minute. Most of all we were lucky. Lucky that we were able to do this trip, lucky that we could do it together, lucky that we returned home safely and lucky that we have what we have - so much more than so many people we met along the way.

It's not a Panama

1. The balcony of our enormous room in Cuenca 2. Hats, hats, hats 3. View from our balcony 4. Local market 5. A very damp Mike at Parc Nacional Cajas

Cuenca. A world heritage centre - stunning architecture, cobbled streets a-plenty, flower markets outside gorgeous churches, atmospheric squares, funky bars and restaurants and - most important of all - one of South America's finest cake and ice cream shops. Oh, and they sell hats. The straw ones that most certainly are not from Panama.

Apparently a popular pastime in these parts is to debate the relative beauty of Quito and Cuenca. Cuencans obviously have a hectic schedule of pastimes, because this debate would take all of half a second. The winner is Cuenca.

We checked into a fancy place overlooking Cuenca's principal church. We had a balcony each and floor to ceiling windows framing the church in a room so enormous you could rollerblade around it (oh, for a pair of rollerblades).

We spent a lovely day visiting hat museums and local markets, munching on a plate of roast hog for lunch, and eating enormous ice cream sundaes. We spent a second lovely day visiting three local villages and browsing their bustling Sunday markets, avoiding eating roast guinea pig for lunch, and topping it all off with an enormous ice-cream sundae.

On our very last day of seven months of travel it rained - relentless and varied Andean rain that explains the thick mat of hair covering a llama. Undeterred, we donned layer upon layer, hats, gloves and scarves and headed high into the mountains for a hike in the bleak landscape of Parc Nacional Cajas. A bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and we slipped and slithered along steep pathways past hundreds of tiny lakes in the rolling mist, occasionally startling a llama in the undergrowth. Despite the rain it was a stunningly beautiful walk and we returned with rosy cheeks to toast our sodden feet and cradle a milky hot chocolate in front of the fire in the friendly national park guard's office. We made it back to Cuenca just in time for a sizable ice-cream sundae.

And then there it was. The inescapable deadline we'd been trying hard not to acknowledge. The end of our trip.

The loop and the devil's nose

1. View on the Quilotoa Loop 2. Laguna Quilotoa 3. Saqsuili market 4. My new husband 5. The Devil's Nose train

From Cotopaxi we headed for Latacunga, gateway to the Quilotoa Loop - a string of highland villages clinging to impossibly steep cliffs where the infrequent buses screech past llamas at breakneck speed to a soundtrack of manic and relentless cumbia. Now when the Lonely Planet say somewhere is 'remote and untouched' but then feature it as one of the top places to visit I always smell trouble, but this time I was wrong - there were a few tourists kicking about but the people were still pleased to see them and the atmosphere was unblemished by their hiking boot-clad presence.

We checked into Mama Hilda's in the village of Chugchilan. Roaring stoves in every room, the elderly owners playing cards in the dining room through a cloud of smoke, home cooked food and humming birds dipping in and out of the flower-laden balconies. Paradise!

The next morning we set off for Laguna Quilotoa. We took a local boy to guide us through the myriad pathways down and back up the steep sides of the plunging valley. It was a really tough walk but at the end we were rewarded with the most incredible view of a perfect cone of azure blue within the volcano's collapsed crater. We packed our guide off on the return bus, bought a few souvenirs from the straggling market at the crater rim and headed back down again, constantly checking ourselves that we were following the right path. We trudged back through thunder and lashing rain along the slippery paths before finally reaching Mama Hilda's where we steamed ourselves in front of the stove sipping a very welcome hot chocolate after 7 hours of walking.

The next day we set off on horseback to visit the local cheese factory. Horses and cheese - what a perfect day. Our horses were uncharacteristically crazy for South American mounts and we galloped haphazardly up sandy roads with the promise of cheese at the end. The cheese wasn't bad so we bought a large hunk and set off again. Our guide managed to fall off his horse and it proceeded to gallop on without him so he ran on in front of us into the cloud forest until we finally found his horse waiting patiently at the lunch stop. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the forest before ambling back down the mountain for a relaxing afternoon swinging in the hammocks, nibbling cheese and watching the humming birds.

The next morning we were up and out at 2am for the only bus of the day around the loop to the famous Wednesday market at Saqsuili. It was worth the ridiculously early start and the freezing cold temperatures on the two hour bus ride. There were several different markets but the highlight for both of us was the animal market. It was pulsating with life - throngs of people in ponchos and felt hats bedecked with peacock feathers chatted and bargained over a cacophony of grunts and squeals. The locals didn't resent us wandering through the slippery mud in amongst the livestock and I spent a happy hour chatting to vendors about the price of llamas, piglets and sheep. It was all going well until the local horse trader spotted me. He called forth a crowd and announced that he was going to buy me to be his new wife, explaining that there was a slight problem as I was already married. Someone from the crowd shouted out 'everything is negotiable' and to much hilarity my new husband wrapped his arms around me. And where was Mike? Shrinking into the crowd whilst capturing the whole thing on camera like any good husband would.

From there we headed south again to Riobamba, hopping on point for the famous Devil's Nose train. Except the train wasn't actually running properly due to some severe landslides. In for a penny, in for a pound, we caught the bus down to a little village further south where we boarded a fake train to nowhere and went for an hour long trip with a carriage full of noisy Germans up and down the nose (a series of steep switchbacks), complete with photo stops and a Japanese trainspotter wearing the guard's hat and taking notes in his spotter's notepad. It was a bit surreal but the scenery was incredible and the sun shining.

From there, onwards to Cuenca, our final stop on the 'crouching rhino hidden llama grand tour'.

Balancing eggs at Easter

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1. Old town, Quito 2. The real equator 3.Basil and Milo, Cotopaxi 4. A glimpse of Cotopaxi

From the Galapagos we landed back with a bump in overcast Quito. Some people rave about Quito but Mike and I found it one of the only cities in South America unable to seduce us. Perhaps it was the interminable grey suburbs and perpetual clouds? Or the fact that every morning over breakfast in our hostel yet another backpacker would recount their scary mugging tale from the day before?

So we caught a few buses out of the city to the centre of the world to cheer us up. Now, just to confuse things, there are two equator lines. The old one, before GPS cleared things up, where you can straddle the fake equator in front of a grand stone monument and buy 'maybe' Alpaca jumpers. Or the real equator - in a tarted-up parking lot around the corner - where you can balance an egg on a nail head, watch water go down the plug hole in different directions and walk along a painted line with your eyes closed and your thumbs up. It was gimmicky but fun, we were duly cheered.

After a few more days in the big smoke, with our wallets shoved in our underwear and eyes in the back of our heads, making repeat trips to see our new best friends at the immigration office to sort out the visa issue, we headed onwards and ever upwards to the foothills of Volcano Cotopaxi for Easter weekend in a remote lodge. It was a lovely few days spent sitting by the fire, risking our marriage over fraught games of scrabble, hiking and playing with the dogs at the lodge, all the time waiting for the clouds to lift their skirts and reveal the jaw-droppingly beautiful conical volcano underneath.

On Easter Sunday we gasped our way up a steep slope of scree to 5000m and had a hot chocolate at Cotopaxi's base camp. I surprised Mike with a Kinder egg which I had frantically run around Quito trying to find a few days before - explaining to bemused old ladies in corner shops that 'los huevos de chocolate' were very important to our Easter celebrations. They keep it simple and while we tuck into our hot cross buns they parade around the streets dressed as Jesus with heavy crosses, in a gory exhibition of mass self-flagellation.

It was an Easter different to any other, tucked up in our cabin with a roaring log fire, far away from the raucous family gathering we usually enjoy, but there are worse places to be than up a volcano beating your husband at scrabble (I am going to get crucified - excuse the Easter-related pun - for that comment).