The tiny city of Coca, formerly known as Puerto Francisco de Orellana, is situated where the Rio Napo and the Coca River meet, making it the “gateway to Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest.”
Many of the more upscale Amazon lodges are located on their own private reserves deep in the jungle and can only be reached by motorized canoes that leave from Coca, despite the fact that there are plenty of hotels and lodges in the Amazon that are accessible by bus or car from the town.
Coca used to be a tiny, little-known town on the edge of the rainforest and the ascent into the Andes that could only be reached by boat or plane. Then, as oil was being extracted from the Amazon in the late 1990s, Coca saw an economic boom. This resulted in a brief period of transition during which Coca was growing and turning into a larger, disorderly city.
Even though Coca still receives a fair amount of revenue from the oil industry today, tourism is quickly overtaking it as the city’s primary industry. This has given the city the justification it needed to fund cleaning initiatives and expand tourist-friendly establishments like hotels, restaurants, and bars.
If you travel deep into the Coca region, you will either arrive at the Huaorani Reserve or Yasuni National Park, both of which are teeming with animals and plants in every level of the jungle. Clear trails lead to even deeper portions of the forest, and the lodges have kayaks and canoes for navigating the waterlogged portions of the forest. Towers and cable canopy walks will also allow you to ascend into the canopy.
