EVEN Cartographers have inside jokes. For in the country of Ecuador, in its Amazon basin
lies a town that when I arrived in 1984, on the shores of the Napo River, was so pustulent
and forelorn, that the whole pueblo seemed to teeter a bit under the weight of its
conquistatory name: FRANCISCO DE ORELLANA. In fact, most people just called it Coca
after the nearby Coca River, as if to alleviate some of the cargo caused by its official name.