We woke up very early on our first day due to the howler monkeys. The noise they made was horrific, it sounded like a large generator!!!

After breakfast we went on a long morning walk, where we walked through jungle and swampy streams following the tracks of a jaguar and her cub, looking at different medicinal plants, walking trees and insects. After lunch a Canadian couple joined the group who were starting their own tour, but they had a different guide. We then went out on the river in the afternoon over to a small islet, where we saw more plants and both nearly lost our shoes in some quicksand! Apparently that's what causes the most accidents - people twisting their ankles trying to get out! Although the next most dangerous thing is actually injuries by falling trees and branches. We'd already heard several fall suddenly on our walks.

On the way back we saw more birds and rescued a jungle turtle that had found itself in the river! As they don't really swim we fished it out and brought it back to the mainland.

We had dinner then went out on our night walk. Away from the lodge there were no lights anywhere, and with the trees covering the sky you literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face. We went over to the river where the stars looked incredible, and you could see the lights of spiders and frogs' eyes! Whilst we were there Jamie told us the story of a Chilean boy called Michael who had been at our lodge in February and got lost one night on his way to his room. After 10 days alone in the jungle, without even any shoes on, he survived and was found alive and well! We weren't sure whether or not this was true, but later found out that it was real and had been made into a documentary by the discovery channel!

After the story we went off the path into the jungle. Jamie had to keep waving his stock in front to break and spiders' webs ahead, as many are poisonous.

We were cutting our way through when he stepped over two big fallen branches together. I was next and put my foot in the gap between the two, holding my torch down to make sure my foot wouldn't slip. To my ABSOLUTE HORROR I saw my foot was stood on a massive snake, the width of its body wider than my foot!!!

I leapt backwards and cried out 'snake!'. I told Rob and Jamie there was a snake in the gap. They thought I'd probably panicked at a branch and Jamie went over to look to reassure me. He then saw it as it coiled up angrily and leapt back, yelling at me and Rob to get away. We think it had been sleeping after a feed, which was the only reason it hadn't bitten me instantly as I trod on it, as I woke it up.

We were then trapped away from Jamie by the angry snake. He cut a VERY wide path round it back to us, then led us away. The problem was that was clearly a route he knew to get to the lodge, so he now had to find another way back, in the thick of the jungle at night away from the path. He was clearly lost and struggling to cut through a new way back as all the trees looked the same. It didn't help that I was literally shaking like a leaf and concentrating on every step, terrified of treading on any other deadly animals! I think that was the point Rob reminded me I needed to keep looking up to so as to avoid walking into a poisonous spider's web...

Eventually, after a lot of walking, we saw the light of the other group and found our way to the lodge. I was still shaken by the experience but the other guide was jealous!!! Jamie later told us it was a Bush master snake, a poisonous viper and apparently the one the locals feared the most, and had been about 3metres long. He also said sightings were very rare and I was 'very lucky'!!! I didn't feel it!