Ecuador's Amazon gateway — Napo River headwaters, Kichwa culture, and white-water rafting at 500m elevation
Tena is the capital of Napo province in the upper Amazon basin of Ecuador — a small jungle city at 500m elevation where the Tena and Pano rivers meet the Napo. It is the principal gateway to the Ecuadorian Amazon for independent travellers, offering access to Kichwa indigenous communities, jungle lodges, Class III-IV white-water rafting, and the upper Napo basin that eventually reaches the Amazon mainstream. The surrounding region is part of the Napo-Galeras National Park corridor and holds exceptional Amazonian biodiversity.
Tena was founded in 1560 by Spanish missionaries as a colonial outpost and Jesuit mission base for reaching the Kichwa and other indigenous groups of the upper Napo. The city was a jumping-off point for Spanish expeditions searching for El Dorado — Francisco de Orellana's 1542 journey, the first documented descent of the Amazon River from the Andes to the Atlantic, originated in this region. Tena remained a small mission and rubber-collection town through the colonial and early republican period, growing rapidly only after oil development in the Ecuadorian Amazon began in the 1970s and ecotou…