Podocarpus National Park - Zamora, Ecuador
Posted by: 
Torgut
S 04° 06.837 W 078° 57.889
17M E 725932 N 9544989
Podocarpus National Park is located near Zamora, in Southern Ecuardo, and it's pure rainforest forest.
Waymark Code: WM137P7
Location: Ecuador
Date Posted: 10/05/2020
Views: 1
This National Park has two distinct accesses and visiting areas. One closer to Loja and another near Zamora. This Waymark refers to the latter.
To get to the Park, one must take a taxi from the town. It's about 6 km SW of Zamora. Once dropped in the parking lot, there is a 2 km walk to the interpretation center and rangers house. The coordinates provided point to a spot in the middle of this trail, where there is a wooden sign marking the boundaries of the park.
There is no entrance fee although a visitor must register with the rangers and hear to their advises and safety recommendations. There are a few trails to explore but clearly getting shorter and more limited, probably due to lack of funding and inability to keep them in proper condition.
From Wikipedia:
(
visit link)
Podocarpus National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Podocarpus) is a national park located in the provinces of Zamora Chinchipe and Loja, in the south-east of Ecuador. It was created in 1982.
It covers 1462.80 km2, from two spurs of the eastern range of the Andes to the basins of the Nangaritza, Numbala, and Loyola rivers. About 85% of the park is in the province of Zamora Chinchipe, and the remainder is in the province of Loja. It is categorized as a megadiverse zone and an area with a high level of endemic species because it is a meeting point between four ecological systems: Northern Andes, Southern Andes, Amazonian, and Pacific.[2] Although considerable knowledge has been gathered about its biodiversity in parts of the area, only a minority of the species inhabiting the park has been discovered so far.[3]
The Podocarpus National Park spans from lower montane rain forests at c. 1000m up to high elevation elfin forests at 3000 m. Paramo or subparamo vegetation is found at elevations >3000 m where a complex of more than 100 lagoons exists, among the best-known being the Lagunas del Compadre.
The park has two main entrances. One is in 'Cajanuma Sector' c. 8 km south of Loja where elfin forest and paramo habitats at elevations between c. 2900 and 3500 m can be accessed. The other is in 'Bombuscaro Sector', corresponding to the Bombuscaro River in lower montane forest habitats at elevations from c. 1000 m upwards. There are two alternative entrances without park guards. The 'Romerillos Sector', corresponding to the Jamboé River southeast of the Bombuscaro Sector is also an entrance for gold miners that work inside the park. Another entrance is at Cerro Toledo, east of the Yangana-Valladolid route in the southwestern part of the park.
Visit Instructions:A log will require a recent photograph at the coordinates. Some of these locations will be placed for the scenery, so a gpsr will just ruin the picture.
If you don't have a digital camera post a descriptive log.