Puyango Petrified Forest

Puyango protects a stretch of tropical dry forest along the border river where trunks of araucaria and other conifers, buried by volcanic ash roughly a hundred million years ago and mineralised in place, now lie exposed on the hillsides as stone: some over a metre across and more than ten metres long, with grain, rings and bark preserved in silica, alongside petrified leaves, fruit and marine fossils that show the ground was once coastal. Guided trails lead among the trunks. The living forest around them is dry-season deciduous, home to over a hundred and thirty bird species including several restricted to this Tumbesian zone, and the reserve is one of the better places to see them.

What you actually see

• Petrified conifer trunks - araucaria turned to stone in place.
• Growth rings preserved in silica - the grain visible in the rock.
• Marine fossils in the same ground - evidence of an old coastline.
• Tumbesian dry-forest birds - species restricted to this zone.

When to go

June to November is drier and the access road easier. Half a day. Guides are compulsory on the trails and are arranged at the entrance. It is hot at midday.

Honest expectations

It is remote, and the drive from anywhere is long on rough road. Facilities are minimal. The trunks are impressive but the site is small and takes about two hours. Heat and insects are real in the lowland.

Nearby

Alamor is east; Machala and the coast lie north-west.