Carretera de la Coca San Rafael Falls Access Route

Built by Texaco in the 1970s to reach oil fields deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, this road punches straight through some of South America’s most pristine rainforest to reach San Rafael Falls — at 150 meters, Ecuador’s highest waterfall where the Coca River plunges off the Andean escarpment. The road starts in Baeza at 1800 meters and descends through six distinct ecological zones, past Cecropia trees thick as telephone poles and river crossings where you’ll see toucans and maybe jaguar tracks in the mud.

This is wet, technical driving through active logging and oil territory. You need high clearance 4WD, mud tires, and a winch — the road turns to chocolate soup in minutes when it rains, which is most days. Go June-September for the driest conditions, but expect mud regardless. No permits but check with military checkpoints about current road conditions and paramilitary activity. Fuel in Lago Agrio, camp wild where the canopy allows. What you get is access to some of the most biodiverse terrain on earth and a waterfall that’ll humble any rig.