Our journey into the jungle started off pretty exciting using a variety of transports and another early start.  We had two flights, a taxi ride, a minibus, a toot-toot (motorbike with a wooden cab on the back) and a shallow, motorised longboat, as the terrain became decidedly less city and more country.  As we zoomed along the Amazon River in our little wooden boat, we witnessed school children also returning to their village, passing us by in little wooden taxi boats.  It was a far reach from home as we realised this was their only mode of transport. 

We had stayed overnight in the town of Iquitos which is only reachable by plane and watched as the rain turned the streets into shallow rivers and remembered the news reports we had viewed only a couple of days before about the terrors around Lima, people having to be evacuated from their homes due to torrential rain and mudslides.  Luckily for us the rain had flowed away by the time we had to be picked up at 7.00am, others in Peru hadn't been so lucky.  

We were told that because this was high water season (they have two seasons, low water season and high water season), our shallow boat could take a detour to our destination and be at our dwellings in one and a half hours rather than the three hours it would normally take.  Instead of going round the huge ox-bow, we were cutting right across what was usually land.

Our destination was roughly where the Amazon had originally been described as the start of the Amazon, where two rivers met to form what we all famously know as being the Amazon.  This starting point originally made the river the second or third longest river in the world.  However, due to recalculations, the source of the Amazon was now actually somewhere further upstream, in the Andes and concurrently established itself as the longest river in the world.  It is also classified as the widest river in the world, with some parts of it reaching 26 miles long, during dry season alone. 

The river was vast and brown and so natural looking.  Even before we had reached our destination, we saw exotic birds of varying height and colour and grey dolphins. High up on a leafless tree, watching over us and the other animals, as we turned a corner was a solitary eagle, resting regally in the bright sunshine.  We tried to not get excited by all the wildlife we had seen, as the captain of the boat and his friend sat nonchalantly by, not even appearing to register what was going on around us. 

We finally turned a corner and our captain pointed to a stilted walkway into the river and explained that that was our destination.  We were to stay in a house built by a local villager and who's nephew would be our guide.  The river boat drew up to some steps, where we were helped out of and greeted by various people.  The stilted walkway carried us away from the river for about 10 meters and opened up to more walkways leading us to our rooms, the "living room" and the kitchen/dining room.  A wooden house on stilts, no glass windows, hammocks in the living area and views out the front to the river and out the back to the jungle.  It was just like Robinson Crusoe.  

As Lorne and I sorted our bags out in our room, the kids were being provided with a snack of a white fruit that came from the inside of a long, hard brown shell.  It looked like coconut, but tasted sweeter and was shaped more like a long pod than a round nut.  The kids immediately felt at home and explored all the nooks and crannies.  There was a chef, our guide, two drivers for the boats and a couple of other people around and they instantly took a liking to the kids and were happy to show them around. 

Meanwhile Lorne and I were being introduced with the realities of actually being in the fucking jungle as we discussed what do about the tarantula and the large as fuck flying cockroach in our room.  Once you've seen one spider though, your eyes open up to other various coloured and sized ones that were lurking around.  Trying to be diplomatic and sensible, we agreed that they would eat the mosquitos that would probably be joining us in the night to feast on us.  However, our evening descended into spider catching once Edith had set her eyes on one on her mosquito net, and no amount of sensible discussions were going to convince her otherwise until we had evicted the lot of them. Luckily the tarantula had skulked off somewhere by then and we only had to deal with the smaller ones, which was still bad enough. 

Once the screams from Axel and the crying from Edith had stopped however, we were able to sit back and listen to the night sounds of the jungle.  No longer could we hear the pollution infested car horns of the city that drove me mad.  Here were birds chattering, crickets strumming, frogs singing.  It was noisy, but it was a peaceful noise and one I could get used to. 

The next morning we were taken on a tour down the Amazon in another smaller, six man boat.  Our guide sat at the front, then there were two perches in the middle, one for me and Axel and one for Lorne and Edith to sit on, and our driver at the back.  The little motor putted away as we glided along the river.  Grey dolphins playing with each other out on the vast opening as we passed them by and onwards into a smaller channel of the river.  There we spotted our first monkey, a woolly monkey.  We watched entranced as two of them swang in the trees above us.  Then they started to venture down towards us and I couldn't believe my luck at how close we were to them.  Then just as I turned back to speak to Lorne about how beautiful they were, the boat jerked and wobbled.  I turned back around and there sitting on the boat was an adult and a baby woolly monkey.  What!? What!? What!? 

I was stunned and froze for a second, not wanting to scare them away.  Our guide explained that they always bring fruit for these two and that is why they're so receptive to meeting us.  He opened a bag and started feeding them as he talked about them a little bit and while we frantically took a million photographs of them.  He very matter of factory explained that he used to hunt these monkeys and eat them, but now they just hunted them for tourists to take photos.  

The bag of fruit was enormous and he passed the fruit around so we could all have a go and feeding them and letting them relax on our laps.  The adult even jumped on Axel's head and started gnawing on his yellow hat, I think it thought he was a banana or something, I'm not sure.  These were the only wild monkeys we were going to be able to get up and personal to though.  The locals understand and respect the way of the wild and don't allow personal contact with the other monkeys living here. 

As we putted along, our eyes were fixated to the surrounding trees as our guide pointed out other various animals such as squirrel monkeys, sloths, iguanas, kingfishers, macaws and toucans.  Sometimes seeing them was so difficult and I couldn't believe how he managed to find them.  It was lovely just coasting down the Amazon, the sun was shining, a light breeze keeping you cool and jungle surrounding you on both sides of the bank.  Beautiful large pink flowers, crawled up round trees, as if a landscape gardener had come along and decided just how an Amazon bank should look like.  

By the afternoon we had returned to our lodgings, had a beautiful fresh lunch and were preparing to go into the jungle for a hike with a group of four girls from London who had joined us.  The word hike had made us feel a bit uneasy as we weren't sure how the kids would cope, but we shouldn't have bothered as they were so excited.  We took our boat through a flooded forested section of the river, going slowly as we navigated around trees coming out of the water.  By this point, Axel and Edith had taken prime position up front with the guide and he had gently taken them under his wing. Lorne and I sat back and enjoyed the ride. 

The kids were advised not to wander or run off (they jumped out the boat first and were about to run off into the undergrowth), and to watch and listen to any rules.  They took the lead behind the guide and off we went, our first instruction being "don't touch that tree, fire ants live in it and they'll come out and bite you, it's pretty sore."  Hands by my side, not wanting to touch ANYTHING after that advise, we moved on slowly. 

We were shown and told about all the trees that had medicinal properties to their leaves, bark and sap.  This one is for cramps, this one for diarrhoea, this one for sore muscles. It was amazing the knowledge that had obviously been handed down from generation to generation.  One of the Londoners turned to me and asked how they knew what all these trees did, who was the first person to discover their secrets.  I shrugged my shoulders, one of life's little mysteries. 

Apart from the fire ants and the larger bully ants, it was a nice walk through the trees.  We were shown them making fans and bottle holders out of large long leaves and Edith even had a crown made for her.  And as we were walking, we came across an Anaconda, sleeping lazily in the grass, right next to us.  It was a small one (thankfully), only about two to three metres and they picked it up to show us its scales and let people touch it if they wanted to.  Axel and Edith, of course were the first to jump at the chance.  

Once we had all had a good look, he returned the snake to its original sleeping position, as we all hurried away in case the snake decided to retaliate for being woken up.  He repeated his mantra while we were stroking the snake "we used to eat these too, but now only photos".  

Another trip on the boat was to search for dolphins.  The grey ones we had witnessed already, catching glimpses of them happily cavorting in the water next to us, but there were also pink dolphins who were a bit more wary of us.  We sat silently poised in the river and eventually in the middle of a group of four grey dolphins, up popped a pink one.  
Their fins don't look as straight as their grey counterparts and they have an almost ghostly, otherworldly look about them.  Once we saw our first one, others popped their heads out too and soon we were seeing them everywhere.  They wouldn't get as close to the boats as the grey ones did, but still to be able to sit silently on the massive river and watch them blow water out of their mouths, almost sounding like whales do when they blow water out of their blowholes, was a relaxing way to spend a few minutes.  

Then it was our turn to swim in the Amazon.  Axel was up and ready and threw himself overboard as soon as he was allowed to go.  The guides thought he was brilliant and really impressed with his swimming.  They had told us a story about Dolphin Boy, a local legend story, and now all I could think about was Axel being Dolphin Boy (I'll tell you the story later!) 

Edith had her floaty on so she was zooming about the river too.  The water was cool but not cold like you would expect a river of that size to be.  What a feeling though - we were swimming in the Amazon river! 

On another boat trip we put-putted our way through wide rivers and green glades and came to a stop.  The engine was cut and we floated silently along the water, the only noise breaking the spell being the wooden oar in the water to direct us.  

The banks were narrower here with thin tree trunks towering out of the water carrying creepers wound round them.  Bright pink flowers dotted the vivid green and brown landscape while high above our heads red and blue macaws flew from branch to branch uttering loud screeches to their companions.  A Toucan with his big stout beak made a silhouette in the sky and then our eyes caught a single yellow butterfly, fluttering around the boat.

As if attracted to the boat's smell, that one butterfly soon turned into many and we were surrounded by butterflies, either resting on the boat or circling around us.  If it weren't for Axel, Edith and the two guides, this would be placed in number one spot for most romantic boat ride.  Our eyes leapt from one butterfly to the next as they attempted to keep up with them.  They danced for us in the afternoon light and we watched silently on our pews. 

Then after about five minutes, they skipped off one by one until two butterflies were left, who escorted our boat along the water and back out into the open.

What the hell just happened there we all wondered?  But this was the Amazon and small pieces of magic like that are commonplace here. 

A quick trip to the village reminded us why we booked through this little independent company.  The community were all related in some way.  They had a chief elder, the land was theirs and if someone in the tribe wanted to build a house, they asked permission from him.  They relied on this tourism to keep the small village of about 200 people together and surviving.  There were stories of the large American tree logging companies coming down here to chop down the rubber trees and locals being recruited to work in return for shoes and clothes, but those days of exploitation were past, and although the tribe suffered, they survived and moved on with this ever changing world.  There was no phone reception and the kids still played outside, not distracted by tablets and other computer consoles.  They went to school until they were fourteen years old, then went to work, mostly farming, but also now tourism.  We got the obligatory stares as we wandered down the main (and only) mud street while we listened to our guide describe how the houses with their grass roofs were built. 

And then we happened upon a elderly local man and were led up the steps of his house and onto his terrace.  I was so hot I was sweating, a river running down my back and into my pants.  The men were talking but I was distracted about how much water was pouring over me.  I grabbed a water bottle from the rucksack and began drinking the lukewarm water, better than nothing, I suppose. 

Once finished, I scrambled to put the bottle back when "ooh's" and "ahh's" started uttering from people's mouths.  I looked up to see the local standing there with a sloth wrapped round him.  They are the happiest looking creatures you will ever meet.  And crazy looking.  He sat with his arms tucked round the locals neck and looked us all in the eye, as if greeting us.  I couldn't believe it.

The sloth had been found as a baby injured in the jungle.  Mother's carry the baby for 9 months before transferring them to the tree then venturing off alone.  There they have to fend for themselves, climbing to the tops of trees to eat and returning to the ground to toilet.  This sloth had been found on the ground, unable to climb back onto its tree, so they had rescued it and brought it here.  It was over two years old now and was big. 

Obviously we all had our turns in cuddling him.  Everyone agreed that they could have sat there all day holding him, just like a baby in a sling would be held.  The kids found some baby ducklings waddling around too and funnily enough became more interested in holding them than the sloth, but maybe just because the adults were dominating the cuddles this time. 

We stopped to look at a small lagoon covered in lillypads, which was nice but a bit dull.  I think usually you can maybe spot a Cayman in amongst them, but no luck this time, and I like lillypads but they're just lillypads? And I stupidly wore sandals so some fire ants in the grass had found me and started biting my toes. 

And then the dreaded night walk was suddenly upon us.  I say dreaded because the mosquitoes here are relentless at night.  Even with 75% deet for our skin and 100% for our clothes, mosquito nets over our beds and a repellent coil burning in the room, we were still getting bitten.  So going into the jungle at night with them swarming around, not really my thing.  

We suited ourselves up, mosquito hats and all and headed out.  There was a guide to lead us and a guide at the back of us so no none got left behind.  Axel and Edith started off taking lead, but Edith soon fell back to hold my hand.  A shout from the left of us, somewhere in amongst the trees suddenly caught our attention and we all froze.  The guide told us to wait where we were and sprinted off into the undergrowth.  A few minutes later he was back guiding us excitedly towards where the call had come from.  They had found a snake.  A rain snake.  It looked about the same size as the anaconda we had seen before.  His markings were different, a shade of dark blue/grey dotted across his back, therefore the name Rain Snake.  

He was a beautiful looking snake, but as soon as you stop walking, you become swarmed.  We were lucky, we had the mosquito nets over our heads, but the London girls didn't and we're slapping their faces furiously with every bite those little bastards took.  

Edith was freaking out with every flying thing that touched her too.  And then she just started screaming.  She was in hysterics as we tried to figure out what was wrong, but she was freaking out so much she couldn't tell us.  Eventually I found a bloody cockroach crawling along her mosquito net.  Lorne kindly stepped in to swipe it off, but it wouldn't budge.  Then we realised the horror........it was inside her net.

We ripped it off immediately and got that bastard out while Edith remained stock still, crying her poor eyes out.  I didn't blame her. It reminded me of one of those horrible "I'm a celebrity get me out of here" tasks they do.  I hugged her tight while Lorne checked her net was finally empty of any critters and she put it very reluctantly back on.  

If there is to be any defining moment in Edith's life while sat on a psychiatrists chair, then I'm sure this will be it.  I'm pretty sure that after the spiders in her beds and cockroaches in her mosquito hat, she won't be returning to the jungle any time soon.  She walked with my hand held tight for the rest of the trek, shaking and jumping at anything that touched her.  

Of course she wouldn't touch the tarantula that the man found on the tree, so I had to be the brave one and let it walk up my arm.  I've done it before with them though, so I didn't mind and I wanted to show the kids that not everything was scary in the jungle. 

And then I felt something crawling on my back, about the same size as a cockroach, he was fast.  I spoke to the girl behind me and asked if there was anything on my back. No she replied, she couldn't see anything.  I could definitely feel it walking.  

And then it hit me.  The fucking things inside my top! I jumped in the air scrabbling to reach it,  I looked down to see it pop its head out of my shirt sleeve by my wrist then turn around to go back in and back up my arm.  My attempts had holding my cool in front of my kids failed and I began flailing around to get it out.  After what seemed like a ridiculously long length of time, I think I got it.  No crawling was felt, I patted myself down and couldn't feel anything hard.  I crossed my arms and said to myself "let's just get the fuck out of here."

The snakes and spiders didn't bother me one little bit, but bugs, I hate bugs. 

We returned for dinner and sat around the table secretly thanking ourselves that this was our last night and we were leaving tomorrow.  What an adventure, what things we saw, but we were itchy from mosquito bites and jumped at anything that brushed us.  

Luckily our last morning was a quiet trip on the boat to go fishing.  Piranha fishing of course.  The four of us slipped onto our now familiar little boat and we seated ourselves with a relaxed sigh.  I loved this bit, where you saunter along, the wind blowing your hair, the kids in front chattering away with each other, and you can sit in silence, just taking it all in.

We entered a dark, tree-laden lagoon and the air grew Still and silent.  The creepiness surrounded us all as we realised only here could Piranhas live.  We navigated slowly through the trees until our guide decided we were at the best spot.  They tied the boat to a tree with a thin piece of rope and began handing out the fishing lines.  They were made of one long thin piece of wood and an even longer piece of wire with a nasty looking hook at the end.  A piece of fish was chopped into tiny pieces and our hooks were baited.  We watched as the guide threw his line into the water and then we all did the same.  

And then we sat and waited.  It wasn't long before we caught our first sight of a piranha as the guide launched his wire out of the water after a few minutes with an orange and grey fish on the end of it.  We all cheered and went in for a closer look.  The fish wasn't huge but his teeth were razor sharp.  Apparently he had caught the more dangerous of the piranhas which didn't make us feel any safer.  Our 2 inch thick boat wasn't much protection from what must be going on below us in those murky waters. 

Fish kept biting my line but I just couldn't catch one.  I began wondering if it was the same one teasing me, eating all my bait, but never getting caught on the line.  Every time I felt a pull I attempted to reel my line in, and every time I came up empty handed. 

And then everything happened so quickly I don't what really happened.  I flicked my line out of the water and a fish flew towards me and landed in the boat.  I admit I did do a little yelp and jumped away from my fishing spot as the fish jumped about, eyeing me up as his next lunch.  The guide finally caught him and smacked him on the head or something, attached him back to my line and I proudly got a photo taken.  First in the family to catch one, well chuffed! 

We were advised we had to do better because this was our lunch when we got back.  I wasn't sure how well Axel and Edith would fare.  They were both enthused, but getting the timing right to pull the rod out when you fed the bite isn't an easy task.  I don't think Edith was bothered either way, but I knew Axel was determined to get one. 

And then he shouted "I've got one!" He felt the pull and he pulled back and out popped a fish.  We all congratulated him, took his photo and then he sat down at the front of the boat watching the guide chop up some more fish for bait.  

Once the fish was caught, the enthusiasm seemed to drain from Edith and Axel.  They started playing with the dead fish as if they were toys.  Making them walk and talk to each other.  They had a great time.  I was determined to catch a second fish, but it wasn't going to be my day.  

Then Lorne shouted with delight and pulled out his catch.  Applause, photo etc etc, you get the picture.  After a short pause, however, the guide stated that Lorne's fish was too small to eat, but would make good bait.  Axel and Edith obliged in helping to cut it into bait and we continued our hunt.  

Piece of bait after piece of bait was eaten away and not a single bite came from Lorne or I.  The guides caught more but we didn't get anything.  Then eventually they weren't even eating our bait.  Time to admit defeat and call it a day.  I put down my rod and sat back while the guides and Lorne battled on for a few more minutes before they too acknowledged the end of the battle. 

I would definitely do fishing again, on a lake, in Scotland, in the sun.  It's a nice accomplishment catching your own food.  We returned to camp and waited for lunch as the chef turned our catch into a delicious meal. 

Then after lunch that was it.  We ended on a high note, packed our stuff and made the long journey back to civilisation.  It had only been five days in the jungle, but we were all a bit shell-shocked the first time we saw traffic and the noise and the smell again and took a wee while to adjust back to all again. 

Would I be a jungle Jane and move to the Amazon.  Absolutely........if the mosquitoes and bugs were permanently removed forever.  As it was, we were happy our time was at an end and we could return to our cheap but cheerful hotel in Iquitos and sleep again with aircon and no biting bastards. 







..