As part of my December 2006 trip to Ecuador, I had the opportunity to visit the extraordinary Petrified Forest of Puyango hidden in a living tropical forest. The forest is located near the Peruvian border in the provinces of Loja and El Oro in Southern Ecuador (Figure 1).
Figure 1

Entrance to the Petrified Forest
The forest is at an altitude between 812 ft. to 2460 ft. above sea level and covers an area of about 6567 acres. I finally found the site after a five-hour trip from Guayaquil, the main port of the country. In addition to petrified wood, all sorts of fossilized creatures could be found, such as ammonites, sea turtles, sea shells, snails, and fish, just to name a few (Figures 3-5).