Ecuador is a vertical country with some of the mountain passes over 14,000 feet. Remarkable diversity in the plant and animal communities is easily noticed as one travel from the eastern jungle lowlands over the Andes towards the Pacific. The high country includes cloud forests and paramo plant communities.
From Wikipedia....Páramo is a neotropical ecosystem. It is located in the high elevations, between the upper forest line (about 3100 m altitude) and the permanent snow line (about 5000 m). The ecosystem consists of accidented, mostly glacier formed valleys and plains with a large variety of lakes, peat bogs and wet grasslands intermingled with shrublands and forest patches.