Oriente

The Oriente is a region of eastern Ecuador, comprising the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes and the lowland areas of rainforest in the Amazon basin.Geographical Land LocationIt is bounded on the north by San Miguel and Putumayo rivers and on the east and south by Peru. Oriente has an area of about 50,000 square miles (130,000 square km) and consists of little-explored and virtually unexploited tropical forest inhabited by a tiny fraction of the country's population, living mostly in small villages along the river courses.The Oriente comprises everything east of the Ecuadorian Andes, which by most definitions approaches half the country, but only 5 percent of the country’s people live there. Although the Pacific defines the coast and the mountains comprise the Sierra, the Oriente finds its heart in the rivers that tie it to the Amazon basin and, eventually, the Atlantic Ocean. The inexorable waters can undercut a huge clay bank or snip a bend overnight, stranding an oxbow kilometers long. The muddy Río Napo, more than one kilometer wide in spots, drains the Ríos Coca and Aguarico and heads off into Peru. Colombia’s Amazon lies across the Río Putumayo to the north. Farther south, the Río Pastaza and Rio Paute flow from Sangay National Park.ConditionsA sizable fraction of the population are indigenous peoples. Illiteracy is widespread, although the Roman Catholic Salesian missions have established a few boarding schools.