The Sierra
Around one hundred million years ago, the westward-moving South American tectonic plate collided with the eastward-moving Nazca plate, which holds the southern Pacific Ocean. As the Nazca plate was forced under the other, the Andes mountains were thrown up along the edge of the South American landmass. In Ecuador, they consist of two parallel mountain chains, or cordilleras, separated by a broad central valley - which the German explorer, Alexander von Humboldt, named the Avenue of the Volcanoes, in 1802. This central valley is itself divided into a series of fertile basins ( hoyas ), cut off from one another by "knots" ( nudos ) of intermediate hills. The basins have been populated for hundreds of years - in several cases, thousands of years - and even today are home to almost half the country's population. A relatively young mountain range, the sharp jagged peaks of the Andes, reaching almost 7000m in places, are not yet rounded by erosion and are still growing as the two underground giants continue to rumble against each other, making Ecuador geologically unstable and volatile. Not only are earthquakes and tremors common, but Ecuador also has a number of active volcanoes : Cotopaxi, at 5897m, is one of the highest in the world. Ten of Ecuador's volcanoes exceed the snow line (5000m), and the summit of Chimborazo, at 6310m, actually surpasses Everest as the point furthest from the centre of the Earth, thanks to the planet's bulge around the equator. Major eruptions occurred as recently as 1999, when, in October, Tungurahua, which overlooks Banos, spewed out a river of lava, forcing the evacuation of the local population for several months. Two months later, Guagua Pichincha, bordering the Quito valley, also exploded, releasing an eleven-kilometre-high mushroom cloud of ash, vapour and gas into the sky and down onto the city, although a major evacuation wasn't necessary in this case. The Andean climate varies widely according to altitude, the time of year, and even the time of day. There are just two seasons: dry (June-Sept) and wet (Oct-May), although even during April, the wettest month, downpours rarely occur every day. Whatever the time of year though, daytime temperatures hit average highs of 20-22°C (68-72°F) and lows of 7-8°C (45-46°F), though there is huge local variation. Below the snow line of the highest Andean peaks, is a slender margin of tundra-like gelodifitia , where little more than mosses and lichens can survive the freezing nights and frigid soils. From around 4700m to 3100m, the climate of the paramo is less harsh, allowing for a wider range of flora and fauna. Covering ten percent of Ecuador's total land area, the vegetation is dominated by dense tussocks of Festuca or Calamgrostis grasses, along with some terrestrial bromeliads and ferns. In the wetter paramo areas, pockets of Polylepis forest grow, one of the few trees that can survive at this altitude. Plants tend to have small thick leaves to resist the nightly frosts and waxy skins that reflect the intense ultraviolet radiation during cloudless spells. Paramo soil is sodden, and excess water collects in the hundreds of lakes that spangle the undulating scenery. The first signs of wildlife also emerge in the paramo with mammals such as the Andean spectacled bear, the South American fox and white-tailed deer, and a number of birds including the Andean condor, the Andean snipe, the tawny antpitta and a variety of hummingbirds. Lower than the paramo are the cloudforests , masking the sierra in dense vegetation between 1800m and 3500m. Wet, green, vibrant and extraordinarily beautiful, cloudforests feel like the kind of prehistoric habitat of predatory dinosaurs. Streaked by silvery waterfalls, the forests are shrouded in heavy mists for at least part of each day, as moisture from the lowland forests rises, cools and condenses. It's this dampness that creates such lush conditions giving rise to an abundance of epiphytes (from the Greek for "upon plants"), such as lichens, liverworts, mosses, ferns and bromeliads , which drape over the trees, densely packed together with knotty trunks and dark coloured bark. They aren't parasites, but simply claim a branch space, set out roots and grow there as independent canopy residents. Many orchids are epiphytes, preferring moss covered branches or exposed bark to normal soil - harbouring over 3500 species, Ecuador is thought to have more orchids than any other country in the world. In a ten-square kilometre patch of eastern cloudforest alone, two hundred orchids have been counted, only a little under Kenya's countrywide total. Cloudforests are also home to an incredible range of animals, including woolly tapirs, spectacled bears and pumas and they have an exceptional level of bird endemism - species unique to a place and not found anywhere else. At higher altitudes, the cloudforest is called elfin forest because the trees are restricted in growth by the permanent mist cover that blocks out the sunlight. Elfin forests are an impenetrably dense tangle of short, twisted, gnarled trees barely two metres tall.
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