After three weeks studying in Quito I decided it was time for a change...and what a change. I managed to find another student at the school who was also interested in a change if scene so we arranged to head off to the Amazon jungle for a week. The school I am at allows you to study in other places in Ecuador, including the jungle, which is one of the reasons I chose it, so two students (me and Peter) and a teacher packed their bags and headed off into the unknown...

To get to our lodge we had to take an overnight bus to a town called Coca at the edge of the Amazon. It was a long 10 hour drive, with a very interesting toilet policy on the bus...given the length of the drive and the fact that the bus does not stop for a break anywhere, the only toilet on board was reserved solely for the use of women?! Not exactly sure why or what they expected men to do if they got really desperate but luckily I didn?t have to find out! And then there was the movie which I might have been able to understand a little of seeing as it was in spanish, but unfortunately I only got to know the first ten minutes or so really well, because every time it reached the same point after ten minutes it rewound itself and started again until someone finally put us all out of our misery and turned it off!

I managed to get some sleep and when we arrived in Coca at 7am on Monday morning I wasn?t feeling too bad. After some breakfast we had a bit of time to kill while we waited for our boat to be loaded up with supplies for the week, but eventually we were on our way down the Rio Napa and heading straight for the Amazon jungle...45 minutes later we left the main river and turned onto the smaller Rio Manduro which would lead us to Yarina Lodge...and when we got there it was just a jungle paradise.

We had beautiful jungle cabins, even complete with hot water which is a rarity out there, and more importantly a hammock for those lazy afternoon siestas! From our cabin we could lay back in the hammock and see the monkeys in the trees or squabbling on a platform where the lodge left bananas for them - just perfect. The lodge itself also takes in animals that need rehabilitation before they can be released back into the wild. They may have been injured or more often they have been captured by humans and taken to cities to entertain the tourists. At the time we were there there were two monkeys - a spider monkey and a howler monkey - and two ocelots (a kind of small leopard).

The basic plan for the week was that I would have lessons in one half of the day and Peter in the other half, so when we weren´t studying we would each go on a guided excursion somewhere in the jungle (in spanish of course!)...

On the first day we went for a walk through the jungle to a 35m high tower. On the way we saw a poison dart frog, tried fruit from the Yarina tree, ate lemon ants (makes a change from licking green ants bums in Australia!) and learnt about lots of the other plants, trees and birds in the jungle. There are over 25,000 species of plant in the Amazon and each one is used for something - amazing. The climb to the top of the tower was well worth my initial apprehension - just don?t look down I kept telling myself. We were right above the tree tops and could see for miles, with a beautiful clear blue sky. The only down side was that once we got above the trees we were bombarded by mosquitos!

When we got back to the lodge the spider monkey had managed to escape from his cage and was having real fun roaming around the grounds. Not sure the staff were as entertained by his antics as we were though, he seemed to like heading for the kitchen in order to secure himself some food!

There were also a couple of other visitors later in the day, which I myself didnt find too welcoming - the tarantulas! I didn?t realise that they were nocturnal animals, so thankfully you don?t see much of them in the day, but at night they often frequented the dining room, mainly because it has no sides (ie it is open) and during the day they like to sleep in the roof. They really are big, ugly, hairy, black monsters and despite seeing them most days it didn?t cure my fear. I think maybe I could probably cope with most other spiders now though!

Being in the middle of nowhere means supplies are limited - water, food and electricity. The generator powers up for 4 hours a day, between 6pm and 10pm, so after 10pm you are plunged into darkness and there?s not much else to do but retire to your cabin for some well earned rest. And with breakfast at 6.30am it?s not too difficult to fall asleep...

The next day I went a short distance down the river in a canoe to a small lagoon where we walked all the way around and saw some fascinating animals. I saw several morpha blue butterflies, bright bright blue and as big as your hand, really beautiful. I saw worker ants, all busily scurrying along in a line and each one carrying a leaf at least three times it´s size; saw the morale tree, with roots that go so deep they are red from the iron ore extract and the walking palm that has roots above the ground and grows new ones when it starts to lean in a certain direction, hence the name as it can move up to 30cm in it?s lifetime; drank sap from trees and used other sap as a lotion for mosquito bites; saw one of the smallest monkeys - the pocket monkey; saw some wild deer and we also found a turtle lurking in the bushes!

At the lagoon was another tower to climb which gave great views over the whole lagoon. We saw lots of birds flying around, searching for things to build their nests. And then we circled the lagoon in the canoes for a closer look at some of the wildlife in the lake itself - more turtles, frogs and anaconda eggs?!

As well as the day excursions we also went out into the jungle at night. The first night trip was a walk to a nearby swamp where we spotted some caimen in the water. They are like little alligators, only visible at night, and even then you can usually only see their red eyes in the light of your torch. We also saw two scorpions (I thought they only lived in the desert?!), snails, beetles and two tarantulas - one carrying babies underneath it. It is quite a scary experience wandering through the jungle at night, there is much more noise and of course as soon as something drips on you or brushes part you there´s immediate panic!

The following day the river had risen dramatically due to some sort of weather condition further up the main river and an afternoon walk to the swamp saw us get stranded. My guide had to give me a piggy back over to the walkway when we got cut off with the water rising so fast! Didn´t see so many animals on this day, although I did see some huge and very dangerous ants (at least an inch long), a kite and more turtles. To keep me amused my guide told me stories about the kinds of things the indigenous people use all the plants and trees for and even made me a jungle basket from vine and leaves.

Another night excursion took us back to the lagoon, and it was really scary going down the river in a canoe in the dark, with just your torches for light. What made it worse was the sheer amount by which the river had risen. Now away from the lodge it was clear that the water was a good 3m higher than the previous day, as the fishing platforms along the way were now almostly completely submerged, with just the roof in view. But when we got to the lagoon it looked beautiful in the moonlight. There were lots of larvae (or gloworms) shining on the water´s surface and we saw about nine caimens. We were able to get really close to one of them in the canoe. Normally they duck under the water when you get close but this just stayed really still and we actually got to see it´s whole head for a good few minutes. Although it wasn´t fully visible we also caught sight of a kapibarra in the bushes. It´s apparently a huge rodent type creature - kind of like a cross between a guinea pig and a pig. And our final sighting of the night was a big toad sitting right next to one of the most poisonous spiders in the jungle. A bite from this and you need some help within an hour or you are in serious trouble...

Back at the lodge we also found a big sloth curled up in a tree. Obviously being a sloth he wasn´t doing much but sleeping but it looked pretty cute in the moonlight.

The next day I had a relaxing excursion down the river and further into the jungle in the canoe. I saw a shaman (like a jungle guru who people go to when they are sick) who was giving a talk to some American tourists, several woodpeckers all doing what woodpeckers do and pecking at a tree (have never seen that before) and a tucan with a very long beak. It was a very relaxing afternoon, although my image of the shaman was shattered somewhat when I returned to the lodge and saw him in regular clothes kicking around a football with some of the other workers. I kind of assumed they always lived in their remote lodge, finding new uses for the plants and trees! I guess it´s like the first time you find out there´s more than one Mickey Mouse! But I was satisfied when I returned to my hammock and spotted another new creature - aguti. It looks very like a tasmanian devil, black and rodent like.

For our final night some of the guides came into the restaurant and played some music and sang some jungle tunes...of course it was compulsary to dance so I put my salsa lessons to good use and it was completely the wrong sort of music, but hey, a chance to practice is a chance to practice!

The last day and no lessons...our teacher left in the morning and we stayed behind to go on one final excursion. This one was a bit further away as we took the motor boat up the main river to a riverside house, where we explored the land. We saw chocolate plants, coffee, cotton, oil used for cooking, leaves used for making hats and much more. There was also the cutest little puppy, maybe only three months old, who followed us everywhere. In the end it was easier to carry him as his little legs weren´t made for trekking through long grass!

The journey back was a little more interesting, however, as we no longer had the motorised canoe, simply a small canoe with a paddle. Fortunately the river was flowing in the right direction and flowing very fast thanks to the amount of water that was now in it. Our poor guide had to navigate us across the river safely and then paddle back down the smaller river to the tranquil surroundings of the lodge. On the way we saw another type of monkey - the woolly monkey. This one was bigger than other I´d seen and was more muscular, like a gorilla. He came right out and sat on the branches overhanging the river so we got a really good look at him.

After that we spent the rest of the day relaxing in the hammocks until it time to take the canoe back to Coca and pick up the overnight bus for the long ride back to Quito. As our teacher had already left, and Peter was going further south I had to brave the bus on my own. But after two really annoying security stops where everyone had to get off the bus and show passports (or ID) and have their bags searched, the night wasn´t too bad and I spent it dreaming about monkeys and hammocks..!

I absolutely loved my week in the jungle. I wasn´t too sure how I´d cope with all the wildlife but it was just amazing. Not a single bug or creature got into our cabin, not even an ant was spotted, so sleeping at night wasn´t a problem...and the entire surroundings were so peaceful and tranquil...a perfect place to study and really unwind...