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A 93-kilometre road runs between Lago Agrio and Coca, built to facilitate access between the burgeoning oil towns in the late 1970s. The road steamrollered through the forest, opening up the area to a flood of colonists to whom the government promised all the land they could clear in an effort to bring economic productivity to the Oriente. The rainforest was speedily hacked down for farming, and the soil, too poor to support agriculture for more than a decade or so, became degraded pastureland within a few years. Meanwhile, oil companies scoured the region, and a giant latticework of pipelines now spread out from the road; at night the flicker of the refinery fires dyes the sky an unearthly orange. The landscape is not totally unappealing, but feels miserably squandered, with livestock and white-trunked trees dotting tired fields backed by the odd patch of forest in the distance. Simple homesteads lie at the roadside, and some of the successful ones guard defiant gardens and orchards from the surrounding grassland. Along this road, too, is evidence of the new commercial interests in the Oriente - vast plantations lining the horizon with sterile rows of African oil palms. About halfway to Coca, an army of fruit, sweet and juice sellers ambush buses pausing in Proyecto , where an eastbound road leaves the main Coca highway. After about 25km, this eastern road skirts Shushufindi , an unsightly town of refineries, compounds and gas-storage tanks, with the occasional comedor and "24-hour nightclub" providing the human touch. Beyond, the dirt road turns south, accompanied by several smaller pipelines, which shoot off to suck oil from 2000-square-kilometre bloques of land and pump it back to Lago Agrio. An hour's drive will take you to Limoncocha and then Pompeya on the Rio Napo some thirty minutes later. From Proyecto, the Coca road reaches La Joya de los Sachas , where there are a couple of simple hotels, but no reason to stop. Some 39km later, just outside Coca, you'll have to show your passport (always carry your original with you in the Oriente) at the checkpoint at Payamino. Keep an eye on your bus - they are sometimes impatient to leave and not always aware that you aren't on board.
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