Farewell to the Amazon

We overnighted in Coca (Puerto Francisco de Orellana) which is a town in eastern Ecuador, a key entry point for the Amazon Rainforest. It's located where the Coca River and the Napo River meet. The city is named for the Spanish guy who first sailed from here to the Atlantic Ocean via the Amazon. On his second attempt he died, unable to find a way through. The city is the centre of the petrochemical industry in the Amazon, so we didn't expect too much to see. But is was surprising (like nearly every thing in Ecuador). The river front had a nice boardwalk and the various tribes from the area peddle their unique wares (including one guy selling wooden carvings of machine guns). There was also a pretty nice market square where it seems everyone was selling the same thing - "Maito". In Ecuador Amazon, this is a traditional dish, typically fish (sometime piranha) wrapped in bijao leaves and grilled or steamed. It's a way to cook food, especially fish, with the unique flavours of the leaves. I tried some at a traditional restaurant and it was delicious. They also seemed to sell a lot of Suri which are Amazonian grubs and are the larvae of the palm weevil and sold on sticks after being BBQ'd. Wasn't too sure I wanted to try these. However it was now time to being the 2 day, 29 hours of flights home....Our final night in Ecuador was spent at the airport hotel - Quite a change from our Amazon experience. Tomorrow is my last post - so I am hoping to spend the 5 hour layover in Santiago thinking about how I would describe this magical place on the planet.