In my backpack I have two books. One is a guidebook for Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. The other is a leather-bound notebook I bought in Madrid airport to write stories, record email addresses, make grocery lists and generally doodle. Neither are recreational reading materials. I made the decision to use hostel book exchanges and to abuse the kindness of other travellers to accumulate my novels. My plan has spectacularly backfired. As a consequence I have now read the first half of about six books, never being able to finish them before my scheduled departure, returning them to the hostel or backpacker with my tail between my legs. Normally I am one of those people who finishes books even when I am not enjoying them. I do the same with pints. It is a principle thing. But principles aren´t as heavy to carry round in a backpack as books. At least, most principles aren´t.

I did manage to get about three quarters of the way through the book I borrowed from the Merazonia book exchange. ´White Tiger´ by Aravind Adiga. It is a kind of dark comedy contrasting India´s rise as a modern global economy and the working class people who live in crushing rural poverty. Take note for next September, Darren. And we thought the ´Celtic Tiger´ was bad. It took a while for Mr Adiga to pull me into the book, but when it happened I was upset with myself for not finishing the book before leaving Merazonia. I was upset in any case, just to be leaving Merazonia. You could say that all in all I was very upset.

Merazonia is an animal rescue centre for trafficked and abused Amazonian animals, located on 250 acres of Ecuadorian rainforest near the village of Mera in the Oriente. The animals are brought to Merazonia by the Ministry of Environment and the police, having been confiscated from other uncaring environments, and are looked after by the Merazonia team. As a volunteer I helped feed and care for the animals, as well as construct enclosures and trails to improve the centre. Some of the animals are on rehabilitation programmes and will be released eventually back into the wild, but many will never be able to be released so the centre tries to give them as comfortable and free a life as possible.

The volunteers shared a dorm room and took it in turns to work as a team on the different feedings and chores around the centre. There was a bathroom, kitchen and bodega to clean, dinner to be cooked, chickens to be fed, clothes to be handwashed. With no electricity I was out of touch from the real world but candlelight every evening is good for the soul (if not also a little sore on headtorch batteries). The animals we worked with were many and varied, ranging from different types of birds (parakeets, blue-headed parrots and orange-winged Amazonicas) to monkeys both white-faced capuchin and saddleback tamarin. The posterboy capuchin was ´Slevin´ who had arrived at the centre on death´s door but who is now a playful infant needing some regular attention. Apparently it is unlucky to call an animal ´Lucky´so ´Slevin´ took his name from the 2006 crime thriller starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci and Lucy Lui. ´Lucky Number Slevin´.

Others had their favourites. There were four tamarins, Roger, Evie, Lisa and Laila with another group of four wild tamarins roaming about the forest, led by Woody. Lisa and Laila are now in an outside cage near the wild tamarins and it is hoped that the interaction between the wire of the cage will one day lead to them being subsumed into the wild group on release. Volunteers also liked a parrot called ´slutty´who enjoyed human attention, and Marvin, the Margay spotted cat (similar looking to an ocelot and native to South America). Marvin was fed baby chickens and rats, but these were no challenge for him. How do you breed a hardy guinea pig?

Some volunteers, I don´t know how, liked the kinkajous. As fascinating as these animals are, I fail to understand how you can have a soft spot for them. You may know them better as honey bears and these guys are aggressive. When feeding we had to lock them in boxes and listen to them hiss at us as we cleaned the mess they had left and also leave out their fresh papaya, corn, grapes, apples and bananas. The only good thing I have to say about the kinkajous is about their s***. And there was a lot of it. It was the most voluminous and colourful s*** I have ever seen, specifically in three colours. Green, White and Orange. I was filled with national pride every time I picked up a handful of their crap on Kinkajou day.

No, my favourite animal at Merazonia was neither bird, nor monkey, nor cat, nor bear. It was rat. Or rodent to be exact. Miss Guatin. Google her. She scurried around on the floor of the big bird cage, under palm tree and bush, raising her little snout up to check out what was going on around her. Her soft hair sparkled healthily in the sun and whenever I came in to feed, she was greeted by a tickling under her cheeks which made her shake with excitement. Miss Guatin, I will miss you.

But never mind the animals. For me, the best thing about being in Merazonia was living in the rainforest again and comparing in my head the time here to my two and a half months spent in Borneo. To go to sleep every night to the sound of the babbling river through the rocks; to cut trails with a machete every day; to look up at the towering trees above as the sunshine uses all its might to blast through the canopy; and to listen with cup of tea in hand to the almost daily thunder and lightning storm from inside a wooden hut as the torrential tropical rain thuds on the tin roof above. That is living in the jungle.

To relax in the common area, we had a hammock, a pack of cards, a guitar, and of course, a small book exchange where I picked up ´White Tiger´. Having moved on from the jungle yesterday, I have already picked up my next read. Here in Banos I have borrowed a book from the hostel called ´Choke´ by Chuck Palahnuik, the guy that wrote ´Fight Club´ and ´Stranger than Fiction´. In ´Choke´, the main character becomes a con man in order to pay his mother´s expensive medical bills, pretending to choke on food in restaurants so that he can involve in his life the person who saves him in the restaurant and then convince this Good Samaritan to pay fictional bills he sends them which he says he is unable to pay. I am about a third of the way through the book, but must leave tomorrow morning if I am to make it to a city with an Irish pub and a live screening of the All Ireland final. There is no way I am missing Down v Cork so ´Choke´ goes back to the exchange.

Perhaps I should just begin to create a list of the books I am reading so that I can buy them all when I get home and finish them off at my leisure. Or perhaps I must accept that the risk I took in not bringing any books has not paid off and that this is just the way I should live my life at the minute. Never knowing the end. Never knowing how things finish. Yes, sometimes it is frustrating. But in a way, I am finding a perverse pleasure in not knowing what is coming next.