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The muddy waters of the lower Rio Napo flow in broad curves for over 200km to Nuevo Rocafuerte on the Peruvian border. Long, motorized canoes ply the shallow river, searching for the deepest channels between large and slowly shifting sandbanks, while half-submerged logs wag vigorously in the currents. It's only sparsely populated, and you'll pass just the odd Quichua homestead linked to the riverbank by steep dirt footpaths. The Rio Napo is the region's motorway, and its network of tributaries and backwaters forms the basic infrastructure to remote indigenous communities deep within the remaining tracts of pristine rainforest. In the forests to the south, between the rios Napo and Curaray lies the Huaorani Reserve , home to about 2000 people. Their territory acts as a buffer zone to the Parque Nacional Yasuni , Ecuador's largest national park, protecting a number of habitats and an extraordinary wealth of flora and fauna. Since Coca became more accessible in the 1970s, this wild part of the eastern Oriente has been one of the country's top natural attractions, where you'll find several of the best jungle lodges , reached by a prearranged canoe ride from Coca. These provide the most comfortable way of seeing wildlife and rainforest and are generally organized in stays of four or five days from home or Quito. Many use a combination of indigenous and trained naturalist guides for forest walks and trips in dugout canoes, have the benefit of observation towers - vantage points to see life in the jungle canopy that's all but invisible from the ground - and their own private reserves close to much larger national parks. A number of less expensive jungle- tour operators also run trips down the Rio Napo from Coca, some using their own accommodation, such as at Panacocha , others making do with tents and campsites. If you're tour is going into Huaorani territory, it's important that the operator has full permission from the community concerned to do so and is making a satisfactory contribution to it. Anangu , three hours from Coca, on the edge of the Parque Nacional Yasuni, is one of the few indigenous communities that has developed an organized ecotourism programme in the area.
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