Ecuador

Plates white, a mix of short & long - the only Latin American country with both; commercial (taxis/buses) = solid orange or orange top bar

The short+long mix is the tell; orange commercial plates also exist in Chile.

Chile: Short+long plate MIX → Ecuador; Chile only has one plate length.

Gen3: white car w/ stubby coiled antenna; Gen4: white pickup w/ black trunk, NO antenna

Colombia: Teal sign backs + bollards → Ecuador.

Mexico: Regional context decides.

Brazil: Portuguese → Brazil.

Panama: No antenna on the truck → Ecuador.

Costa Rica: No antenna → Ecuador.

Shitcam coverage (official Ari): wide circular blur, brownish colours, sometimes a red logo at the front - the only Latin American country with it

Bollards very common (rare in LatAm): round w/ 2 red stripes, or flat black w/ 2 red reflectors (variants keep the scheme)

Within Latin America a bollard-heavy round leans Ecuador; a similar rectangle exists in Malaysia.

Malaysia: Latin American context (Spanish, cars) → Ecuador; Southeast Asian context → Malaysia.

Poles mostly round concrete (generic); the useful one: ladder pole w/ MANY small indents - more or less unique in LatAm (Brazil's waffle poles have only a few)

Brazil: Many indents → Ecuador.

Concrete roads relatively common; double guardrails very common (rare elsewhere in S. America)

Chevron spam in curves - far more chevrons than most of LatAm (Colombia occasionally too); lots of square white road signs

km markers green w/ the Ecuadorian highway shield

Sign backs sometimes painted teal blue (thin metal posts) - the only LatAm country; one/two-way signs w/ text inside the arrow (otherwise only DR & PR in LatAm)

Teal backs = instant Ecuador within South America.

Houses mostly grey brick + metal roofs; hexagonal-tile pavement in some urban areas

Peru: Grey → Ecuador.

Bolivia: Grey → Ecuador; red → Bolivia.

Coverage centred west (much of the Amazon uncovered; Galápagos = trekkers); Gen4 nearly everywhere except NW + SE; antenna meta: 'high antenna' (wire above halfway) = always northern half

Landscape: Andes through the middle, flat east & west; bananas → southwest; extremely dry coast → only Guayaquil↔Manta; flattest → around Guayaquil (E-25/E-48); Amazon = flat + white-barked Cordia trees + oil palms (almost always high antenna); Esmeraldas = Amazon-like but hillier; south = winding mountain roads w/ exposed brown-red dirt; Chimborazo = semi-arid + pines

Taxi/plate letter = province (first letter usually matches the province name; beware P = Pichincha/Quito appears elsewhere); poles w/ oval see-through holes → Loja; black-yellow painted guardrails → Guayas

Spotlights: E-40 (Salinas↔Guayaquil) = one of the only divided highways, in the dry SW; brown pipe alongside some NE roads; Galápagos = trekkers + boats only - volcanic soil, low shrubs, craters, giant tortoises