West of Cuenca the Andes fall away towards the Pacific in one of the most dramatic descents on the continent, from the cold lakes and páramo of the Cajas massif to the hot banana plantations of the coastal plain. Paredones, a small Inca site in the Molleturo area on this western flank, takes its name from the stone walls, paredones, that survive among the grass: remains of buildings, enclosures and a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan that crossed these mountains between the highlands and the coast. It is part of the Andean road system inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2014.
The site sits high, often in cloud, and on a clear day the views over the lakes and ridges are wide. The Inca chose such places for waystations and control points along the road, and this route connected the highland centre of Tomebamba, today's Cuenca, with the coast.
The road that brings you here is the reason to come. From Cuenca, the E582 climbs into the Cajas National Park, a landscape of hundreds of glacial lakes, rocky ridges and polylepis woods, crossing the continental divide at well over 4,000 metres. Then it plunges westwards, down through cloud forest and tropical valleys to Naranjal and Puerto Inca on the coastal plain, losing almost all of that height in a few hours. The tarmac is generally good but the curves are endless, fog can reduce visibility to a few metres, and trucks crawl up and race down. Temperature can swing from near freezing to thirty degrees in a single descent, so dress in layers you can peel.
Wildlife in the Cajas includes Andean condors, llamas reintroduced to the park, foxes and an extraordinary range of hummingbirds and orchids in the cloud forest below. In the lakes, trout introduced long ago are now a local staple, served fried in roadside restaurants along the road.
Naranjal, twenty-two kilometres away and far below, has fuel and services, and Cuenca, a lovely colonial city and World Heritage Site in its own right, has everything. Fill up before crossing the Cajas, as there are no stations on the high section, and keep an eye on your fuel gauge on the long climb, which drinks more than you expect at altitude.