So ive finally made it out here to join jonny and have been allowed to write the blog!!

On Sunday we set off on my first trip, which to break me in gently was just (!) a 4 day trek into the deepest darkest amazon rainforest. Unsurprisingly I was bricking it, I can barely cope with overnight camping trips in England never mind the jungle!!

So we got in a taxi to the port and then on a boat, where we saw the first attraction of the trip which was the joining of the amazon and the black river. The change in colour and temperature (and apparently ph- although not having litmus paper with me I was unable to confirm this) was really noticeable and it was as if the two rivers had not mixed at all!!

Next we all got in a van and had a brief stop off to look at some giant lily pads, before getting into a speed boat to head to the lodge where we would spend the first night. We arrived just before lunch and jumped straight into the amazon to cool off (for the record- jonny's dives and back flips are priceless). It was only during lunch when we saw a dead alligator floating down the river that we realised what else was probably in there with us!

The rest of the day was spent:
- speeding around the river looking for wildlife- we saw lots of birds and some dolphins too which was pretty cool- except that mathius our guide became a bit of a broken record by the way he kept pointing out 'kingfisher' 'heron' and 'grey dolphin'

- piranha fishing- I caught 3!!! Everyone else got 1 or 0, so have decided this could be an alternative career for me! We were promised this would later be made into soup (apparently natural Viagra) but we never saw any of it so can only presume the guides kept it all for themselves...

- floating on the river watching the sunset, which was amazing

- going out in the boat in the dark cayman spotting. Mathius caught a baby one which was cute (in an 'it could still rip your head off kind if way') and we got to hold it- then when we got back the other group had caught a much bigger one which we held too but was slightly more scary!

- drinking rum and playing cards by candle light ( the electricity went off at 10pm and whilst everyone else went to bed we decided to live dangerously in spite of our 5.30 am get up the next day to watch the sun rise)

That night was VERY sweaty, as no air con and mozzy nets... Added to Jonny's hallucinations from the doxy tablets and some annoying monkey making cockerel noises (i was ready to get a machine gun) meant we didn't get much sleep. We were woken up by mathius at stupid o clock making some weird hissing noise (which was confusing as we had already established he liked making animal noises) when this didn't work he resorted to a more traditional 'GET AAAAAP' to make sure we were out on the lake in time to watch the sun come up, which again was beautiful!

Then we headed out for a trek in the jungle- which was ridiculously hot and sweaty (the phrase 'heaven to betsy' is hereafter used to describe such conditions) We were looking for wildlife but as there were 6 of us we were too noisy and I think we scared most things away. There were a couple of rustlings which according to mathius were iguanas or wild pigs, but to be honest he could have been telling us anything as we didn't see them! We saw some other things like tree sap used to make chewing gum and Jonny eating an edible grub I'm a celebrity style (gross). I spent a large proportion of the walk in a grump after having torn a MASSIVE tear in the crotch of my trousers by being too over enthusiastic jumping on a rope swing!!

After what felt like forever (seriously I thought I wasn't going to make it through the day) we went back to the lodge for food and a siesta before heading out into the jungle to camp out overnight. To be fair this was the part of the trip I was most worried about and was not helped when we rocked up at our 'camp' which was basically a structure filled with bats and spiders from which we could hang our hammocks.

So we went about setting up camp as instructed by mathius, which involved chopping fire wood and hanging the hammocks. I think he thought we had lived in the jungle before, and we were all getting the impression we were an increasingly big dissapointment to him. 'i left you for an hour and you have only chopped 3 bits of firewood', and him basically re doing everything we had already done including re hanging all the hammocks I had already hung.

It was during this part of the trip that we discovered how much of an eccentric mathius was. He spent a lot of time swinging in his hammock saying 'i like my hammock' and a lot of time asking 'where is my machete?!' (he seemed to be pretty lax about where he put it down). Also, almost every question we asked him was answered by 'yeeeeeeaass'. These later became tag lines for the trip. After dinner (fish and rice cooked over a camp fire) we went 'night fishing' which was basically mathius at the front of the boat attempting to catch fish with a spear whilst dragging us in the pitch black through various trees and plants at the edge of the river with huge spiders in! It seemed to go on for ages and we were all pretty keen to get back on dry land and get to bed.

'bed' was a hammock with a mosquito net that I had erected earlier in the day and a night of little sleep followed again through sweating, animal noises and trying to work out whether the buzzing mozzy noises were coming from inside or outside the mosquito net!

Next morning we were up at a slightly more civilised hour to go and hunt for tarantulas. This was more successful than the 'monkey spotting' had been and we managed to see 3! I was quite relieved that once we had tempted them out of their hole they were pretty eager to get back in rather than just jump at us!

We got back to camp in time for lunch and mathius set us to work collecting more firewood to cook the chicken. After having been told by mathius that any wood could be used for chopping, Jonny spent 45 mins chopping in the sweltering midday heat, only for mathius to dismiss the logs as being the wrong type of wood, ie not 'dry' wood!! Cue frustration by Jonny but before he could get back to the grindstone, mathius pronounced 'i need my machete!!!' (slight variation on the phrase) so we went back to the boat to help the others fish. We were starting to think telling us to fish had been a clever ploy by mathius to keep us out of the way, but a few minutes later Claire succeeded in catching a black piranha! These are much bigger than the ones we had caught on day 1 and was apparently the first one to be caught in that spot for over a year- think this earned us some much needed respect from mathius! About 5 mins after claire's star catch, ste felt a tugging at his line. Convinced it was the second black piranha of the day, he got excited at which point Heather jumped on it to claim the fish as her own.... But it turned out to be..... A log. And the respect we had gained had been lost again.

After having lunch and packing up camp mathius took us out on the boat again with the promise of 'beers with fishing'. Which turned out to be no beers and watching mathius fish which was a déjà vu of the night fish from the previous evening and him only catching one fish!

Then we headed to our host family's house for the night. Mathius went to the shop to get us some supplies and ingredients to make caprinhas, promising to be back in an hour and a half. He was gone for 3 hours so we passed the time swimming in the river (this did not last long as riggers thought she felt a dead body) and playing cards, making some random observations- riggers- "oh my god- pig with a fish!!!!" and being convinced that we would get shouted at when mathius got back for not hanging up our hammocks! We had dinner with the family, got drunk on caprinhas whilst teaching them how to play spoons and listening to mathius talk about his 3 girlfriends (we think this is why he'd been gone so long earlier. We also think he was trying to make riggers girlfriend no 4 by trying to give her a kiss before bed). Then the six of us slept in hammocks, v close together on the front porch. Think newton's cradle and u would not be far from picturing the scenario. Again lots of sweat, and not much sleep although fewer Mosquitos this time.

Next morning we went to a rubber farm to see how they make rubber (the condoms were pretty special) and went to another family's house which was really modern. The 13 yr old girl was smitten with Jonny who charmed her with a rendition of Justin biba and lady gaga (!). Enough said.

After lunch and a bit of time to swing in a hammock, four days of jungle adventure and profuse sweating (I think this is the sweatiest 4 days of my life thus far) was over and we headed back to the hostel in Manaus, thoroughly exhausted and looking forward to 9pm when we knew the air con would switch on in the hostel!