Manaus or Quito?

Neither city is somewhere to go for the beach, but Manaus at least lets you swim. Ponta Negra has warm, dark Rio Negro water and a promenade for watching the sunset. In the low-water months, boats reach white sandbanks upriver around Tupé. It depends on the season and on water quality, so treat it as a bonus.

In Quito, high in its valley, swimming means a hotel pool or the warm municipal pools in the valleys below. If you want sand, you have to add the Pacific coast or the Galápagos as a separate part of the trip.

The two are about level, and in both the food is regional and the range narrows quickly beyond local dishes. Manaus cooks from the river and the forest: tambaqui ribs on the grill, pirarucu, tacacá broth that makes your lips tingle, and fruits such as cupuaçu and camu-camu that you will not find elsewhere.

Quito's food is highland comfort cooking: locro de papa, roast hornado pork, the set lunch at the Mercado Central and hot canelazo on cold evenings. It has the advantage for anyone who loves chocolate or coffee, since Ecuadorian cacao and highland beans are easy to taste in the old town and La Floresta.

Quito is well ahead here. Its UNESCO-listed colonial centre is one of the largest and best preserved in the Americas. It runs from the gold interior of La Compañía and the San Francisco monastery to the towers of the Basílica, and Casa del Alabado and the Guayasamín collection add strong museums.

The sights in Manaus all come from one short period of wealth. The Teatro Amazonas, the palaces and the iron market hall built in the rubber boom are worth seeing, but the museums are small, and two days covers the city.

Neither city has much of a night out, and they differ more in style than in amount. Manaus is about plastic tables on the pavement, cold beer and dance halls playing forró and boi-bumbá drums. The bars are spread between Ponta Negra, Adrianópolis and Vieiralves, and there is no club scene.

Quito's nightlife is more concentrated. Salsa clubs and backpacker bars fill around Plaza Foch in La Mariscal at weekends, and La Floresta has quieter craft-beer and cocktail bars. In both cities you take taxis between areas after dark.

Both are outstanding, in completely different ways. Manaus is the gateway to the lowland Amazon: pink river dolphins, flooded forest you explore by canoe, the black and brown rivers running side by side, and the islands of Anavilhanas. To see it properly you need nights at a lodge, and the humidity limits hiking.

Quito is mountain country. A cable car and a trail take you up Pichincha, Cotopaxi has glacier hikes and riding on the high plains, and the cloud forest around Mindo is one of the world's great places for birdwatching. Here the altitude, not the heat, is what slows you down.

Quito has far more to offer here. Otavalo's Saturday market, with Cotacachi and the weaving villages, makes a full day out, the equator monument is close by, and Mindo and Papallacta each make another.

Around Manaus there is only river and forest. Presidente Figueiredo has waterfalls and caves, but other towns such as Parintins are many hours away by boat, so your time outside the city is best spent on the water.

Both are hard going with young children, but the obstacles are different. In Manaus they are heat, humidity and mosquitoes. Children who love animals have plenty to see, with otters and manatees at the Bosque da Ciência and dolphins on the river.

In Quito the problem is altitude, which can make small children unwell for the first days, along with steep streets. The rewards are standing across the equator line, riding the TelefériQo and the lawns and pedal boats of Parque La Carolina.

Quito is easier to get around. A metro line and bus rapid-transit corridors run along its long valley, and the old town is compact enough to explore on foot, if slowly, since the streets are steep and the air is thin.

Manaus has no rail transport at all, and visitors rarely use the buses. Outside the few blocks around the theatre and the market, you depend on taxis and ride-hailing, and every trip on the river has to be booked as a boat outing.

What you take home follows the landscape. Manaus sells the Amazon: Indigenous basketry, seed jewellery, feather work and natural oils around the Adolpho Lisboa market, with guaraná powder and fruit sweets as easy gifts. Because the city is a free-trade zone, the streets of its old centre are also crowded with electronics and imported goods.

Quito's crafts are Andean: toquilla-straw Panama hats, which are made in Ecuador, alpaca textiles, tagua-nut carvings and bean-to-bar chocolate, all gathered at the artisan market in La Mariscal. Serious buyers save their money for the Indigenous market at Otavalo, and in neither city do the big malls offer a visitor much.

Quito is the cheaper base. Set lunches, metro rides and taxis cost very little, and guesthouses in old colonial houses are good value.

In Manaus, street food, taxis and business hotels are also cheap, but most visitors come for the river trips and jungle lodges, and that is where costs rise steeply. Keep in mind that a Galápagos trip arranged from Quito costs more than either.

Manaus is ahead here, mainly because of one building. You can see opera, ballet and the Amazonas Philharmonic inside the rubber-boom Teatro Amazonas, especially during its annual opera festival. Boi-bumbá shows add drumming and costume that are found only in the Amazon.

Quito's Teatro Nacional Sucre and its national symphony are worth an evening. The Andean folk ballet companies are the most distinctive thing to see, though the programme overall is more modest.

Quito is clearly better for this, because the thermal pools of Papallacta, wrapped in mist in the páramo hills, are an easy outing. Simpler public pools in the warm valleys below the city are closer still.

Manaus has no bathing tradition, and the city is not a place to slow down. Rest there means a hotel pool or a few quiet nights in a hammock at a river lodge.