One of the most biodiverse protected areas in the world sits just outside Loja, where the Andes meet the edge of the Amazon basin. Podocarpus National Park encompasses an extraordinary range of habitats across a single mountain system — páramo highlands with frailejón plants, cloud forest dripping with mosses and bromeliads, and lower subtropical forest where the vegetation becomes dense and tropical.
The park has recorded over 600 bird species, including the spectacled bear and multiple endemic species found nowhere else on earth. The main entrance at Cajanuma is 8 kilometres south of Loja; from there trails lead into the páramo. A second entrance at Bombuscaro, near Zamora, gives access to the lower-elevation forest. Guides are strongly recommended in the lower zones, where the trails are less marked.