Ecuador’s Andes are mountains of paradox, where tropical species live alongside ice age relics in an unpredictable alpine desert. THE ANDES ARE one of the most unusual places at the Equator. In Ecuador, a country whose Spanish name means ‘equator’, unexpected plants and animals meet on the slopes of active volcanoes. Every day, a conflict rages between the heat of the equatorial sun and cold created by towering mountains. The weather is always unpredictable and changeable, and the inhabitants of the paramo must endure four seasons in a day, and sometimes even in an hour. Vicunas are camels, perfectly adapted to the cold desert of the high paramo. They’re protected from cold and intense levels of solar radiation by wool that is among the finest and warmest in the world. At 4300 metres above sea level air contains only half the oxygen it does at sea level, but vicunas can maximise each breath of this thin air.