A delayed flight meant a delayed arrival which earned evils from our Korean and Swedish fellow travellers. The Swedish forgave us thankfully and we got chatting as we sped along the Madre de Dios to our Ecolodge "Ecoamazonia". Our first taste of the Amazon was a gorgeous rice dish wrapped in banana leaves (at least McDonalds hasn't quite made it everywhere yet). We were then raring to go for our first trip which was across to "Monkey Island" which was owned by Ecoamazonia and was protected to stop the greedy locals eating the poor primates. There were 3 types of monkey (cappuccino, squirrel and spider) but they all had one thing in common - they were cheeky! Our guide had brought (guess what?) bananas to feed them with and they were certainly not shy in coming and grabbing or even eating the bananas out of our hands! As we were feeding the monkeys we were unaware that we were also feeding mosquitos by the thousand and we soon found out that standing still was not an option in the jungle. We then crossed the impressive torrent of water back to our Lodge for another jungle dinner before heading out at dark to wrestle crocodiles (but actually they were caimans and we didn't leave the boat but searched for the glinting eyes - still quite scary!).

On returning to our hut we thought the sun might have got to us as lights started to dance before our eyes. But no! It was fireflies! We crept over and watched as they danced for us. A strange noise brought us to our senses and we quickly retreated before we became dinner for a jungle cat or something worse. Our lullaby was rather loud though - the constant din of a hundred thousand insects in our ears made sleep and easiness difficult. Was that something crawling up my arm or was I imagining it..?

We eagerly left our insect ridden beds the next morning only to find that a walk in the jungle has its fair share of hazards namely things like tarantulas! Our jungle trek took us down muddy pathways, along boardwalks and eventually a canoe ride through caiman infested waters to a viewing tower. Our closest encounter with a caiman was when the guide made us paddle near one and then poked it to get a reaction. He must know what he's doing... we were still asking this when he decided to draw out a tarantula from it's usual hidey hole. Hmm, thanks Mr Guide. A short climb up the viewing tower gave us a view of..well, the tops of lots of trees. Let's be honest, you've seen one jungle, you've seen 'em all.

The afternoon brought us to some locals to see how they lived. The torrential rain (to be expected in the jungle!) didn't dampen Dave's spirits when he nearly embarassed the locals with his fine display of archery with a hand made bow and arrow....Dave may remember this slightly differently to them though.

Our last evening was going to be spent lounging in their pool until we caught site of the owner's pet - a tapir! It was amazing to see one if not in the wild at least in its natural environment. We had one last spider, insect and general insect-filled night before a trip back along the river the next day to the main town where we did a bit of shopping and were highly amused by a sign outside a hairdressers saying in Spanish 'hairdresser required while a man sat there with half a haircut and no hairdresser in sight. Maybe you had to be there.

Well, with another big one (going to the jungle was on the 'to do' list) completed we had one final 'big one' to go which would take us 3600 metres above sea level- the Inca Trail. Next stop: Cusco.