Ecuador
Geography
Roughly the size of Colorado, no country in Latin America offers such diversity in such a small area. From the high Andes running the length of the middle of the country, the eastern slopes fall sharply into the Amazon basin. The elevation change from the Andes to the Amazon results in unsurpassed biodiversity for a country of Ecuador’s size, and a wealth of hiking, rafting, and other outdoor adventures.
Ecuador features five distinct ecological "zones" with unique climates, vegetation, and wildlife. Without leaving the country, you can experience the rainforest, the mountains, and the seacoast!
Five million years ago the mountain range now named the Andes appeared, dividing Ecuador into two low forested plains and a narrower, intermediate band bordered by the "Avenue of the Volcanoes." About the same time, a cluster of islands were forming 1,000 Km. off Ecuador's Pacific coast: the Galapagos islands.
Ecuador is often pictured as a land of steamy jungles astride the Equator, bordered by the Pacific Ocean. But a large area is Andean Sierra, dominated by a range of towering volcanoes and highland valleys that form a significant temperate ecological region sustaining numerous wildlife species.
The rainforest region to the east of the mountains remains the most sparsely populated of Ecuador's three continental regions and contains only about three percent of the population, but is home to a veritable world of wildlife.
