After Cotopaxi we headed to Teña on a 5 hour bus journey, largely on dirt roads to Tena. We were on the edge of the jungle and the heat and humidity were a shock after the incredible cold of the mountains. We again felt fairly safe, the people seemed more interested in us and less interested in exploiting tourists, and it was a much more relaxed place to be. Before we arrived we decided how much a canoe trip would be worth to us, in dollars. We are very jealous of hearing of the good season you guys are having down in the south west, and I can only believe the same is true near Middlesbough, Muppet.

We hired kayaks and kit from our hostel. Jim got an H3 (but the owner was concerned he might not fit into it!), and much to my concern they didn´t have any Acrobats, although I begged. I ended up in a ´Wavesport Kinetic´. Suspiciously short, and rather low in the water as the moisture seeped through the deck. Anyway, I got over my worries of this new fangled modern boat after a while, and even went through some medium sized waves in some of the rapids!

Seriously, it was a beautiful river. It was far wider than I´d imagined, as we were really not to far from the source. It was ´pool drop´, with proper grade 3 highish volume water (they were expecting fresh rain). The water was clear and cold, as it flows from the glaciers in the Cotopaxi National Park.We were treated to a wonderful lunch by the side of the river. The was a raft on the river too, and the guy from the hostel that was ´leading´ us down was also acting as a safety kayak for the raft. - Hence the lunch, it was dinner for 12.

I said the river was cold, but just before the bridge where we got out (after a 27km paddle) we noticed some guys panning for gold. They were looking in a small tributary, a different colour to our river. The water coming in was from the jungle proper, the Oriente. It was a shock to feel the temperature, and find it was as hot as a relaxing bath.

Our river was called Rio Jatungacu, a tributary of the Napo, which in turn feeds the Amazon. This is the stuff dreams are made of.

The following day, although we were tempted to blow the budget and go again, we couldn´t justify it, and headed off the Baños, famous for the hot springs, and active volcano above the town and many water falls. We hired mountain bikes to do a tour of the cascades, keen as ever to get away from the town. We travelled through some lovely jungle along side another eye catching river, with sections from grade 3 to 4/5 but 60 km later we were pleased to be able to get the bus back to Baños from Puyo, having seen around 6 of the renouned cascades.

We plan next to get to Riobamba in time to take the train down the famous Devil´s Nose on Wednesday. The train only runs 3 days a week - the service limited following an earthquake a few years ago that damaged long stretches of the line. From there on the Guayaquil, and then our flight to a completely different world.