Coca

Tuesday 8th March 1988

We went for breakfast in El Paisano, following up our omelettes with banana pancakes. The young scamp who served us told us that he works from 07:00 to 22:00 hrs. every day for a wage of 4,000 Sucres per month.

We bought our tickets for the ferry boat to Puerto Francisco de Orellana, or Coca as it is more commonly known, for 900 Sucres each. Puerto Francisco de Orellana, also known as El Coca, is the capital of province of Orellana in eastern Ecuador. The city is located in the Amazon Rainforest at the confluence of the Coca River and the Napo River (the smaller Payamino River also merges into the Napo in the city).

The city is named for Francisco de Orellana, who explored the confluence of the Coca River and the Napo River. It is believed that he set sail from the current location of the town eventually making his way into the Amazon River seeing the "Amazon" or tribes in which the women also fought. Eventually Francisco de Orellana made it to the Atlantic.

We registered our intention to travel at the Marine Base and then went for a swim in the rapidly flowing river adjacent to our hotel. There was a sandy, pebble-strewn beach where we left our clothes and gambolled in the turbulent brown water.

We showered and went down to the boat at 11:30 hrs. Our ferry was a dugout canoe which was about twelve metres long and just over a metre wide. We had been told that the boat would not leave unless there were ten tourist passengers, but we left with the six of us and a crowd of locals.

I sat with Ben on our pile of baggage at the front (bow). After a struggle shoving the vessel off of the beach, we powered down the river with the strong current whisking us along. The scenery was thick forest on both banks with the odd woman doing her washing and a few locals in smaller dugouts.

A black chicken lay dejectedly in the bow, squawking occasionally as the front man put the pushing off/punting pole across its neck. We stopped at small places with two or three wooden huts on the banks overlooking the river, and at other times we dropped people off at seemingly uninhabited spots along the heavily afforested bank.

In a couple of places speculators/prospectors optimistically panned for gold. After a few hours the scenery became routine and so did the journey. Every so often we would turn counter to the current to come alongside the bank to drop someone off in the mud or take new passengers aboard. Most of them carried nylon sacks, babies or old shotguns.

The sun went down behind the clouds and the river got wider and plucked violently at numerous log jams and tree debris. At dusk we saw the bridge at Coca and landed at the jetty, which was like a scene at the ghats in Varanasi in India. People were all along the bank covered in soap suds, washing themselves, or doing their laundry. Children shrieked and ran about, pushing each other into the brown water.

We registered at the Marine Base and checked into the scummy Residential Rossita for 300 Sucres each. The rooms were hot, dark and stuffy. We went down to the restaurant and sat in the oppressive evening heat, sweating.

There was no choice but a set menu of soup followed by rice and meat for 250 Sucres, served in a perfunctory manner. We had a couple of beers between us and went out to see what the scruffy, dusty town had to offer. It is a dirty oil town with crude stalls selling food in an atmosphere filled with smoke and dust.

We discovered that there was a bus to Rio Tiputini tomorrow at 06:00 hrs. Here we had been recommended a guide for a jungle trip. Rio Tiputini (stream mouth) is located in Ecuador nearby to Boca del Tiputini, Merced, and Ubina. It is also nearby La Victoria and Tiputini.

We had a beer at the Hotel Auca and then found Cremys Ice Cream Parlour. A huge crowd were outside the shop next door which had a television which they were all watching avidly. We cheerfully polished off a couple cornets, sampling all of the available flavours. A cheerful and delicious end to a tiring day.

We returned to the dim courtyard of the Residential Rossita, which smelt like a dirty toilet. Other guests loitered about with their transistor radios twittering tinnily. The electricity supply in Coca is only on from 19:00 hrs. until midnight.

We went into our airless wooden cell and lay on top of the bed in our underpants. Peter-Paul had an irritation in his bladder and had to visit the toilet many times in succession throughout the night.