El Refugio is located in Intag, in Imbabura Province, Ecuador. The farm comprises about 60 acres of land, partly fields and partly forest. The Toabunchi River passes through it. At 6,000 feet, the weather is spring-like, with cool temperatures in the evening, typically ranging into the 70s during the day.
Northwest Ecuador cloud forests have been described as perhaps the most biologically diverse in the world, especially in terms of their flora. The farm and surrounding forests have a prodigious number of orchids and other flowers, of trees (including the medicinal wonder-tree Sangre del drago), and of various epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants), such as bromeliads. At times there are many birds. Mammals are much harder to see, but many interesting ones live at or pass through the farm.