Packed extra mosquito repellent and suncream, and headed off to the oriente in the east of Ecuador, near to the Colombian and Peruvian borders to visit a reserve of primary rainforest. It´s sometimes a bit dodgy due to the Colombian Army occasionaly dropping bombs here but we were luckilly not hit.

we spent 5 days in the jungle, rowing a canoe up and down the cuyabeno river. we hunted for and ate piranas (they are vicious little things, they can eat a chunk of red meat of the hook in seconds, and they´ll bite your toes in the boat if you´re not careful). we went bird watching at dawn and saw pairs of blue and yellow and red parrots and toucans and amazon kingfishers and lots of birds that made noises like alarm clocks.

we walked through the jungle quite a lot and saw an alarming array of insects and snakes and lots of types of monkeys and a sloth and an agouti, and little little frogs. also a moth with a 10 inch wingspan which was amazing. i shone my torch at it and it freaked out and flew in my face with the force of a small bird, kind of gross.

there are loads of caimans (3 metre long crocodiles ) that surrounded our island camp ever night which was scary but they didnt move much, just watched us...

we stayed at an indigenous community where our jungle guide dissapeared until 10 the next morning then reappeared somewhat dishevelled after a night on the local cane sugar booze. he was so hung over he couldnt steer the canoe the next day so we kept crashing into the banks where there are loads of anacondas.

the jungle is amazing, its completely alive and it makes you feel very small. we went for a walk at 10 at night and it was pitch black and absolutely TERRIFYING becasue eerywhere you shone the torch there was a tarantula or a scorpion and loads of red eyes shining out from the shadows. and the noise is louder than in the day. the cicadas and the howler monkeys are the worst.

but its such a magical place! i am covered in insect bites, and have big muscly arms from all the canoing.

its just a shame that there is oil uner the jungle because they clearly want to dig it all up and there are loads of pipes leading out from the jungle which apparently frequently leak and the oil companies like Texaco are predictably irresponsible... the govt here is trying to kick them all out so we´ll see how sucessful this is.