Zamora sits in the foothills of the Andes mountains where the cordillera buckles down toward the Amazon. The convergence of the three rivers shapes daily life. The Parque Lineal runs along the Zamora River, a long ribbon of green where locals walk in the morning and watch the light shift across the water. The town's growth was driven, like so much of southern Ecuador, by gold. Spanish colonists founded a settlement here in the 16th century, were attacked by indigenous people, and the area was reclaimed by the Shuar and Saraguro communities. You can still see Saraguro residents in town, distinguishable by the black shorts that mark traditional dress.

The real reason most travelers come to Zamora is the park. Podocarpus protects a vast section of cloud forest and tropical foothill jungle that crosses two ecological zones: an upper pre-montane section with walking routes through cool, dripping forest superb for birdwatching, and a lower subtropical section reaching deeper into the wilder forest with virgin stretches and endemic species. Entry runs around US$5 per zone. The park takes its name from the Podocarpus genus, a group of southern-hemisphere conifers that grow in the higher elevations and give the cloud forest its characteristic broken canopy. Hummingbirds here outnumber recognizable species elsewhere, and orchid diversity is among the highest documented anywhere in the Andes.

Start the day early at the main market, where stalls dedicated to jugos naturales serve some of the most distinctive drinks in this part of Ecuador. Try horchata con savila, an herbal tea brewed from five different medicinal plants and mixed with aloe. It is not the sweet horchata of Mexico or Spain. It is greenish, bitter, slightly slimy from the aloe, and considered one of the healthiest breakfasts a person can have. The combination is medicinal in the literal Andean sense: the plants are chosen for what they do to the body, not for taste. After the horchata, find a stall selling encebollado or a bowl of tilapia from the local fish ponds.

Zamora's signature drink is chicha, a homemade alcoholic beverage made from manioc or chonta, a palm nut. The Shuar and Achuar people who live in the surrounding region drink large quantities of it, especially during mingas, communal work gatherings where the whole community pitches in together. Chicha of chonta and chicha of yuca have a deliberately neutral flavor: the natives use no sugar, no salt, no other substances to provoke fermentation, relying on traditional methods that produce a drink with what westerners would call almost no taste at all. It is offered to all newcomers as a gesture of hospitality. Refusing is poor form.

If the rain holds off, the Yamila trek leaves from the Yaguarzongo neighborhood and climbs one of the small hills surrounding the town. The reward at the top is a complete view of Zamora and the valleys carved by its three rivers. About two kilometers from the center, the Orquideario Paphinia is a greenhouse cultivating more than 3,000 native plants, including hundreds of orchid species, aroids, medicinal plants, and timber tree saplings. It is small, quiet, and one of the few places where you can see the diversity of the surrounding cloud forest concentrated in one walk. The closest major airport is Mariscal Sucre in Quito, 440 kilometers away; most travelers fly to Cuenca or Loja and continue by bus.