Day 4: Long trek in the Jungle for 8 hours followed by caymen spotting from a canoe.

The jungle trek was amazing, we saw monkey, birds and lots of creepy crawly type things. The most fun bit of the trek was the fact that we were clambering up muddy paths falling over each other, generally laughing for hours. We eat lunch sitting on a fallen over tree with ants everywhere: be proud, I didn?t even squirm once! Our trusty local guide Bolivar looked after us with a huge machete while our naturalist guide Marco told us all about trees, bugs and fungus. Once we got back and cleaned up a bit we had an amazing 3 course dinner, see the picture of the ?La Salva? chocolate desert!

Day 5: More trekking, canoe around lagoon, butterflies, piranha fishing, lots of monkeys and then some drinking!

Trekking is all roughly the same and we had a generally relaxing canoe around a lagoon about an hour away from the lodge. The lodge actually cultivates butterflies to sell on for the purposes of pollination so there butterfly farm is an excellent place to see loads of different type of butterflies really close up.Piranah fishing is amazing, they are so violent, put 25g of beef on a hook dunk it in the water and they finish it off in a matter of seconds! We each caught one, mine was big enough to eat but it got away as the guide was helping someone else get theirs off the hook. Luckily we caught more and had them along side dinner. As we were fishing a huge tribe of monkeys arrived in the tree next to the lodge and so we took a canoe out to get a closer look. At one point they were almost close enough to touch! In the evening we played cards with some English guys and a few Americans before having a little drink in the staff cabin!

Day 6: Back to Quito and a bus to Ba? celebrating Peruvian independence day

So the trip in reverse 15 mins canoe at 6am, 15 mins walk, 2 hours motorized canoe, 25 misn flight, lunch at maccy d?s and then 3 hours bus ride to the small town of Ba? so called because of the hot springs and public baths. Our GAP guides Vanessa and Julio are both from Peru so we had to celebrate Peruvian Independence day- obviously. So where better to do it than in an Irish Bar!.

Day 7: 4 hrs up a volcanoes to see smoke for 30 seconds before the clouds came in, great feeling of accomplishment! The path for this trip was incredible! So steep raggy, at points crawling through tunnels other points jumping from side to side trying to find a good foot hold. We though ti wasafour hour round trip but it was actually four hours up! I thought I was going to die, the top was nearly 400m up so as we got higher the air got thinner and it got harder and harder. Felt really good to make it though.

Day 8: Long bus ride to CuencaUp early the next morning to take the bus to this lovely colonial city. Nice and relaxed walked around the old building in the evening, drinking with two Americans an Wunderbar, gotta try the Wunderbar punch, it?s great!

Day 9: Looking around the city museum, shrunken heads and a big cathedral!

Day 10: Even longer bus ride across the border into PeruThere was a strike so the highway was closed, obvious solution, go off road. At one point through a mine field, past so disputed territory with soldiers, then one to the field full of diteches where the coach was at 45 degrees to flat for about 30 mins. We did briefly think we might die but turns out it was all fine just took a very long time!

Day 11: The BeachMancora, small beach town, a little rough to start with but a few hours on the beach, and some foolishly burnt legs seemed to fix everything. Had an amazing fish dish by the beach but the best meal of the trip was from LA Tuno, the chocolate fondant alone was worth the visit!

Day 12: More beach, with extra sun cream today! Leaving for Trujillo tonight on a night bus, it?s supposed to be pretty bad so might need a few drinks before I leave!