And so off to the jungle

And so our Galapagos adventure is over… we arrive back in San Christobal and hop straight onto the internet to try to book a trip to Yachana, the jungle lodge where Katie is staying.

Yeehah! We get onto Paola who fixes everything up in fifteen minutes… we’re just on a flight to Quito we say… call you in a couple of hours. We do and find we are on the 11.00am flight in the morning to the jungle!

Back to the Galapagus Natural Life Hostel… oh my goodness I am so not going to miss those beds,…. Mmmmm wonder what the jungle will bring though! Quick change over of clothes and we assure Gabriella that we will be back in 3 weeks to pick up our bag. Back to the Italian restaurant for dinner.... eat now as we don't know what will be on offer tomorrow.

And we are off to VIP, pronounced VEEP the little airline that will zoom us to Coca an oil town on the Napa river and then it is a 3 hour canoe trip up theriver to Yachana. We are met at Coca by Geranio who is to be our guide up the river. A quick explore of Coca gives us the chance to buya new torch and more sun lotion…. And of course to take more photos of street life.

The canoe is a shock … so big and long. There is a mum and her two daughters who have hitched a ride to a village on the way, Geranio, the driver and us. We don huge ponchos… of course we are in the rainforest and so it is raining! Here starts our jungle adventure.

The river is wide and muddy,every nowand then we pass a dugout canoe or see small family groups on the river bank, washing clothes or panning for gold. Small paths lead steeply up muddy banks and disappear into the lush growth of the rainforest. As Geranio starts to tells us about the wildlife.. anacondas, spiders, caimans etc I start to wonder what we have let ourselves in for!