Bosque Petrificado de Puyango

Go birdwatching on the Ecuadorian coast with approximately 700 species of birds, including many endemic and migratory ones that are hosted by a grand diversity of ecosystems. Many have evolved in isolation and have subspecies that have developed in specific tropical habitats.

Travel the 13 designated areas for nature conservation on the Spondylus Trail. Start your trip in the north at the Cayapas-Mataje Mangrove Ecological Reserve, where you will find the tallest mangroves in the world. Stop over at the Machalilla National Park. This is Ecuador’s unique continental-island ecological reserve. Apart from its archaeological heritage, you will find species that also live in the Galapagos Islands. Visit this area from June to September and enjoy the humpback whales breaching out of the water performing one of the most impressive courting behaviors in the animal kingdom.

Yate Angel

Try dolphin watching while navigating the estuaries of the Gulf of Guayaquil, Morro Channel and the Jambelí Archipelago. This is possible all year round.

Continue thru successive forest corridors which alternate from estuaries to mangroves in coastal marine areas and end in the impressive Puyango Petrified Forest and the Podocarpus National Park to the south.

Piqueros patas azules

You can decide to explore ecosystems like coastal islands, beaches, mangroves, desert shrub lands, dry tropical forests, rainforests, interior wetlands and mountain cloud forests up to 1,200 m (3,937 ft) above sea level, and that are all within reach of the traveler. These natural systems are inside of a biological corridor called the Tumbesian Region which is shared with northern Peru.