The Galápagos islands are not the only place of the Ecuador with a rich fauna. Andean bears, giant hummingbirds, giant otters, swallow-tailed kites, Andean condors, king vultures, northern pudus, mountain tapirs and jaguars, among others, can be found in the Sangay National Park.
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| El Altar |
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El Altar or Kapak Urku is an extinct volcano on the western side of Sangay National Park in Ecuador, 170 km south of Quito. Spaniards named it so because it resembled two nuns and four friars listening to a bishop around a church altar.
The mountain consists of a large stratovolcano of Pliocene-Pleistocene age with a caldera breached to the west. Inca legends report that the top of Altar collapsed after seven years of activity in about 1460, but the caldera is considered to be much older than this by geologists. Nine major peaks over 5,000 metres (16,400 ft) form a horseshoe-shaped ridge about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) across, surrounding a central basin that contains a crater lake at about 4,200 m (13,800 ft), known as Laguna Collanes or Laguna Amarilla. - in: wikipedia
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