PODOCARPUS
Zamora
This is Zamora, city of birds and waterfalls: located in the exact place where the Andes end and the Amazon starts. We'll go through tropical rainforests, cloud forests and wetlands, and it'd be rather tricky to point to where exactly one ecosystem has transitioned into the next. We'd rather enjoy it all: the beautiful landscapes, the sense of harmony, the orchids blossoming across our steps.
❧ As the mountain recede into the jungle and we go descend several thousand meters in our ride, waterfalls form across the board. There's hundreds of them; personally, we'll take you on a hike to La Poderosa -that stands for the powerful one.
❧ We will take a short detour to Yantzaza, a small town aliased as The Firefly Valley, where we'll taste delicious ayampacas. It's another marvelous, next-to-the jungle experience, which unfortunately is on the brink of forfeiting its natural treasures to the mining industry.
❧ The Podocarpus National Park encompasses 120.000 hectares and it has one of the largest number of unique plant and animal species in the entire world. You might get to see mountain tapirs, hummingbirds, butterflies and, depending how deep do you fare, jaguars and bears.
