I was brought up on a farm near Burghley. I remember, aged four, being held up to look out of an upstairs window as the Fitzwilliam Hunt came by. At that age, my most-used word was “pony”. I hunted, did hunter trials and showing until I went to university.
I was working in I had some holiday to take and tossed a coin to decide where to go – heads was Ecuador. There was something about the country – the scenery, the people, fewer rules, more space – that grabbed me.