Our jungle adventure started in the Cuyabeno reserve, in Ecuador`s Oriente, on the Rio Aguarico. It was quite an adventure actually getting to the reserve as we had to catch an 8 hour overnight bus to the ugly oil town of Lago Agrio where we met up with our group of 10 other travellers. Once we had all met up we then had a mini bus journey to the river where we transferred to a small motor boat for a 2 ½ hour journey down the river. Our guide for the trip would be the lively "Condor" Miguel.

Our original plan was to stay 4 nights (although in the end we stayed for 5 nights) and it was clear even from the first boat journey to our lodge that we would be seeing a lot of wildlife. As our motor boat chugged along the 10m wide river we encountered shy monkeys in the forest canopy, tree snakes, parrots in the trees and then we were lucky enough to find an anaconda sleeping on a branch just above the water. Not a bad afternoon of wildlife spotting!

On arrival at the lodge we were lucky enough to be allocated our own room, however, the mosquito net did not look as sturdy as we would`ve liked, for reasons that would become apparent later. As dusk approached we all jumped back into the boat and headed off to Laguna Grande, a nearby lagoon where we were assured that it was safe to swim. On the way there we were fortunate enough to encounter some pink freshwater dolphins, well that's what we were told anyway. The water is pretty murky and these elusive dolphins only surface briefly to breath - blink and you could miss them. Swimming in the lagoon was great fun, mainly consisting of finding amusing ways to jump off the side of the boat. We would end up swimming in the lagoon most evenings. On our return to the lodge we were in for a fright as Condor took us for a night tour of the lodge to show us where the resident tarantulas lived. There were 6 altogether each one as big as a man's hand and one of which lived in the eaves of the roof of our room!

Our first day in the jungle and we had already seen snakes, dolphins, monkeys and tarantulas!

Day 2 saw us up with the lark for a jungle walk, which was a little disappointing as we didn`t see much in the way of fauna and just managed to get wet and extremely muddy, but much better was in store. In the afternoon Condor took us fishing for piranha. It was kind of like fishing - we put lumps of juicy steak on the end of our lines which the piranhas gleefully ate. It wasn`t until right at the end that Erez managed to catch a small one, which certainly wasn`t big enough to eat. Fishing over we had to get our torches out seeking boas and caimans in the night. Condor`s keen eyes found us a tree snake but no boas and just as we were about to give up he spotted a black caiman. Excitedly the boat was steered towards the ravenous reptile and steak was dangled over the edge to entice it closer, right next to where Gemma was sitting - she was no more than a foot away. It was pretty scary stuff to see the caiman feeding so close up, snapping its jaws inches away from the boat!

Nights at the lodge were a pretty social affair despite there being no electricity. We ate dinner by candlelight and by the second evening the group were getting on really well.

We were having trouble getting to sleep with all the creepy crawlies so we resorted to alcohol to help us sleep. Unfortunately it got a little out of hand with a few bottles of red wine, beer and aguardiente which led to some dancing on tables and a very late night.

The next morning we were in no fit state to be on the boat, Craig especially feeling worse for wear was ill over the side. We were on our way to a local village for the day. We were supposed to visit the Shaman of the village but he was out of town, so we saw some bright parrots, a pet monkey, made some bread from yuka and got beaten by the locals at football instead.

Come the evening we went for a night hike which was all about the spiders and specifically the spiders we found that had managed to catch fish nearly twice the size of themselves!

Our last full day in the jungle saw us dispense with the motor boat in favour of paddling a smaller boat to a secluded lagoon that the motor boat couldn`t reach. We were in search of caimans again but were unsuccessful, we also had a second go at piranha fishing in the hope that we would catch one big enough to eat. This time both Craig and Gemma managed to catch big ones - but still not big enough for eating so they were thrown back. Then Bea managed to land a massive piranha and even Condor could not argue that this one was too small to eat - so we ate piranha for our farewell dinner. We were all jolly tired from paddling the boat all day and were not thrilled to learn that we had a 45 minutes to paddle back to the lodge. The group resorted to singing, including Disney songs in our various languages, in order to spur us on to make it back. This didn`t always work out so well for us as it seems that Condor cannot steer and sing at the same time, as we were in the front of the boat that day we sometimes ended up in the bushes.

We had a wonderful time in the jungle, everyday we did new things and saw fantastic wildlife sometimes up close and very personal. Our group (and Condor) were really fun and there was hardly a dull moment, even motoring up and down the river surrounded by the jungle was a thrilling experience.