My wife and I recently spent three weeks in Ecuador, where we did a few day hikes. Part of our time was in a city called Cuenca, in the southern highlands, at 8200 feet elevation. An hour outside the city is Parque Nacional Cajas, a craggy, windswept landscape of alpine grasslands called paramo, dotted with hundreds of lakes, most of which is at around 12K to 13K feet in elevation. Here are a few shots from a 9-mile hike on "Ruta 3" in the park. Unfortunately, I don't know Andean wildflowers, so I can't tell you the names of any of these, except that one is clearly a kind of paintbrush.
Laguna Torreadora
Cajas National Park, Ecuador
- vibramhead
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Re: Cajas National Park, Ecuador
Bobcat to the rescue!Unfortunately, I don't know Andean wildflowers, so I can't tell you the names of any of these
Great pictures and very interesting flora and landscape!
Some people are really fit at eighty; thankfully I still have many years to get into shape…
Re: Cajas National Park, Ecuador
Thanks for the photos and description. Plan to get to Ecuador one of these days, and Cajas looks like a great place to go!
haha ... I'm a babe in the woods with Andean flora. Great pictures, though!Peder wrote:Bobcat to the rescue!
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Re: Cajas National Park, Ecuador
Heck, I've been to some of the Andean areas and can't tell you what they are either. There are some differences in which countries you visit thou. Chile and Argentina have national parks that would be most familiar to us from the north. Biodiversity is lower than northern SA, but still very different flora/ and some fauna than here. Chile in particular has an extensive list of amazing places to go. Pretty much everything you could visit here in N. American pacific coast from Baja to Alaska exists there. I spent some 9 months traveling back and forth across the borders between Chile and Argentina and only saw a portion of all the parks they have. These two countries are very protective of the parks systems. English language is used by many, especially in tourism.
As you head north the diversity of flora and fauna increases as per the discussion on impact on another thread on overcrowding. The areas with the most diversity are highlands on the edge of the Amazon. The increasing altitude increases the species as each zone has particulars of its own. So the Andean countries that surround the Amazon have incredible diversity. The problems here with parks are that some towards the Amazon basin are very difficult to get to. Some roads are VERY bad to non existent. If there is a road they are probably being developed and exploited for resources even thou a sort of protection exists.
Others are not your usual north American type parks. They can be rural areas that have had humans living there for centuries and you are more trekking village to village than actually heading into wilderness. Transportation to some local villages can be flying in or only once a week on a Camion, (flatbed truck with rails) used by the indigenous groups & sometimes folks like me who want to get to some place. Often Spanish is their second language, so even that can be an issue. Thou the more "tourist areas" usually have English language tourism. Is it worth the trouble I suppose like anything it depends on what type of adventure you want and how much time you have, cause in the Andean countries in particular many folks just aren't in a big rush and transportation is problematic.
Going to some of these places does require a fair amount of research as the parks vary widely in SA.
As you head north the diversity of flora and fauna increases as per the discussion on impact on another thread on overcrowding. The areas with the most diversity are highlands on the edge of the Amazon. The increasing altitude increases the species as each zone has particulars of its own. So the Andean countries that surround the Amazon have incredible diversity. The problems here with parks are that some towards the Amazon basin are very difficult to get to. Some roads are VERY bad to non existent. If there is a road they are probably being developed and exploited for resources even thou a sort of protection exists.
Others are not your usual north American type parks. They can be rural areas that have had humans living there for centuries and you are more trekking village to village than actually heading into wilderness. Transportation to some local villages can be flying in or only once a week on a Camion, (flatbed truck with rails) used by the indigenous groups & sometimes folks like me who want to get to some place. Often Spanish is their second language, so even that can be an issue. Thou the more "tourist areas" usually have English language tourism. Is it worth the trouble I suppose like anything it depends on what type of adventure you want and how much time you have, cause in the Andean countries in particular many folks just aren't in a big rush and transportation is problematic.
Going to some of these places does require a fair amount of research as the parks vary widely in SA.