The rain continues!! I guess that´s what you should expect from a ´rain´ forest but it is supposed to be the dryer season!

We get the weekends off so last weekend we all headed to a place called Banos which is famous for its natural springs (hot water at last!) as well as it´s jungle tours and extreme sports. It was a bit of an emotional weekend though as we were caught behind a fatal bus accident. The brakes had failed on a bus ahead of us and it had careered into the rock. We were all a bit shaken up but arriving in Banos, the beauty and charm of the town helped to take our minds off it.

One of the girls wanted to go canyoning / rappelling but she didn´t want to go on her own so I said I´d join her (not really knowing exactly what it involved). It turns out that it is basically abseiling down the middle of waterfalls!! We covered 5 waterfalls ranging in difficulty with the first supposedly being the easiest. I say supposedly because I lost my footing halfway down and swung smack into the rocks on my right hand side - I now have lovely war wound scratches down my arm and all the way down my leg!!! Needless to say I concentrated slightly more on my footwork on the subsequent waterfalls. Luckily there were no more accidents! We went right through the centre of some of the waterfalls and the force of the water was pretty intense. For others we abseiled down the side and in some places the rock slanted inwards which made things trickier. The last waterfall was great as there was a pool halfway down where the water came up to your chest!

This last week has been pretty action packed as well. We´ve dug more drainage trenches, cleared more trails in the jungle and mown the grass with machetes (not something I wish to repeat again soon!). We were taken on a jungle hike on Wednesday to one of the nearby rivers. The scenery was amazing - the river had a black sand beach and we were the only people for miles around. We were told to paddle or swim in the faster moving water rather than in the calmer areas. When I inquired why I was told because the anacondas like the calm water…… reassuring! The walk there had taken two and a half hours but on the way back our Shaur guide decided to take a different route. This resulted in us getting quite lost! In order to find our way back to a path he knew we walked round in circles a bit, hacked down a few small trees and walked through a large stream. I managed to get completely stuck in some mud - it came over the tops of my wellies and it tool 3 of us to get me out - much amusement! We also had torrential rain which only added to the fun!! In the end we made it back in four hours and before it got dark which was very lucky.

Last night we got to officially camp in the jungle (complete with campfire and stories)! We walked up to a viewing point on the top of a hill with great views of the rain forest where we saw an amazing sunset and sunrise. I wished I´d managed to stay awake the whole night as our Shaur guide said he had seen two large monkeys during the night! Hopefully another time……

I´m now in a town called Tena for the weekend which is north of Arutam and is apparently the white water and kayaking capital of Ecuador. Hence why I have just booked myself on a class 4 40km all day white water rafting trip for tomorrow - can´t wait!!!!