Got up early in the morning and headed off to the bus station to catch the bus for Tena, which we've heard has really good white water rafting. Taxi driver was being a bit weird and we thought he'd dropped us off at the wrong place, we gave him a bit of abuse but turns out we were in the right place so sorry taxi guy. Jumped on the bus to be met with pictures of crashed Ecuador buses on the TV, nice.

Spotted a dead body along the road in the bus which wasn't very fun, especially as the bus slowed down so everyone could get a good look. We somehow arrived safely in Tena, how this happened ill never know as the driver was a maniac and drove about 100mph and raced other buses.Wandered around the town for ages trying to find somewhere to get information about the town, it was impossible. We finally found the rafting company we were looking for, and book a class 4 river for the Saturday coming. Went to a restaurant recommended in one of the guide books, the waiter turned out to b one of the weirdest people ever, and a sloth lived in the rafters which was also strange. Had a 5pound fillet mingon which turned out to be pretty good for the cheap price.

Had no big plans for the day, heard there was a place called Monkey Island just up the road so headed there expecting a full days activities. At the front door was a huge board with maps and trails into the jungle you could take, turns out the map was about a million years old as all the trails were over grown, the woman that owned the place only decided to tell us this about 2 hrs after we came in, we were wadding through dense jungle trying to find these trails for ages.

Totally annoyed we headed back into town and spotted another small animal park right in the middle of town beside the river. This park turned out to be 100times better than the last one, the were heaps of animals walking around the park, and we were suspiciously followed by a angry looking tapier for most of the time,

Cont...

Brid thought it looked pretty cute but I thought it looked like it would kill us if we gave it the chance. There was also a mean looking pig that kept trying to eat my toes and drooled all over my trousers as well the dirty b*****. Met a random American guy on the way out that was pretty sound if not a bit weird, he spoke really slowly and I reckon he fancied Brid, he must have been on drugs. Also met 2 random people who were gonna be doing the rafting with us tomorrow so went for dinner with them, I'm pretty sure they were "super posh" and the guy was either "super gay" or the most camp straight guy ever.

Did nothing that night except watch TV and get ready for rafting tomorrow. Up early and at the office waiting to be taken to our rafting, jumped in a small mini bus with about 7 other people and headed off to the river. Walked down a very muddy and steep track to get to the river and when we got there our slaves were still blowing up the rafts, so the guide, who claimed to be Irish but had the weirdest accent, took us to a small lagoon nearby so we could all go for a swim, there was a pretty big jump from a cliff you could do but as you'll see in the pictures Brid decided to take a photo of this instead of a video so it doesn't look that good, we didn't have time to do another one. Headed back to the rafts and got our safety talk about what to do if you go under the raft and such, sounds fun!! Brid was crapping her pants a wee bit but once we got going we were all right, we were put in a boat with the couple from the night before so I was potentially in a raft with 3 women, I still wasn't sure. The instructor was really good and gave us instructions on what to do in the rapids, the first half of the day was only a class 3 and was pretty tame to be honest.

Stopped for lunch half way through the day and had some good burritos, then got ready for the class 4 rapids, the rapids weren't as crazy as I thought they were gonna be. The guide told us it hadn't rained in about a week so the river was a lot lower than it usually was. We went through a couple of big ones but I never felt the boat was gonna tip over at any point. At one point a massive spider crawled up the "coo-eee" boys arm, Brid had been sitting there 10mins ago and luckily she'd moved or I reckon she would have actually cried, the thing was huge and could also walk on water, Brids worst nightmare. We had to catch the bus straight after the rafting to Riobamba to the Devils nose train, which is recommended in the guide books but people have said its not that amazing, will do it anyway and see what happens. Jumped on the bus at 6pm, 6hrs of crap bumpy roads to look forward to.