After another night in the airport (this time Belem, waiting for our connection to Manaus), we arrived in the heart of the Amazon jungle. No, we were not staring down a growling jaguar or trading beads with spear-toting indigenous people. Instead we were in Manaus, a sprawling city of two million people and it was HOT. We arrived on the day of Brazil's quarter-final against Colombia and, after booking ourselves on to a 3-day jungle trip, we took up position outside the Teatro Amazonas to watch the game on the big screen. After four games we had finally given in and bought the shirt to help blend in (apart from Sophie's hair). Again the street beers were flowing and meat (of dubious origin) on a stick was soaking them up. Brilliant atmosphere with Brazil scraping through against a below-par Colombian team.

With a slightly sore head we set off the next day on our jungle trip . The journey to the lodge involved several buses and speed boat rides with a stop to feed some very big and strong fish. We stopped at 'Encontro das Aguas' (Meeting of the Waters). Here the dark Rio Negro and the coffee-coloured Rio Solimones flow side by side for several kilometres without mixing (due to differences in speed, density and temperature), before merging to form the mighty Amazon. A strange sight.

We arrived at the riverside lodge and were greeted by Scott and Linda, a Canadian couple, who were volunteers teaching English to the locals. After lunch we set out in the dugout-canoe with our guides, Carols and Luiz, to fish for piranhas. This activity turned more into us feeding the piranhas much to the amusement of the others who were pulling them out with ease. However, Sophie eventually caught a big one and as the rest of the boat took in the pink river dolphins and sunset views, Sam finally caught his fish! Just as golf spoils a good walk, fishing spoils a good boat trip ... Between us we had caught enough for the next day's (very boney) dinner.
Once it was dark, we went in search for baby caimans. In a less than environmentally friendly manner, Carlos plucked one out of the water for us to hold in the boat.

After a night in the hammocks, we ventured into the jungle to discover its interesting flora and fauna including many medicinal plants. We saw the white sap from the rubber tree, giving us an appreciation of the scale of workforce that must have been involved during the rubber boom. Luiz also coaxed a tarantula out of its hole, allowing us to get up close to it.

For our second night, we had the choice of spending the night in a jungle camp or at the home of Luiz and his indigenous family. By this point in the trip Sophie had 63 mosquito bites. It was a no-brainer. The family home was a wooden house on stilts at the riverside and pretty much a subsistence farm with 2 pigs, a 'domesticated' wild boar, 6 geese, 8 chickens, 4 dogs, 2 cats, 30 tortoise in a tank and a boa constrictor in a box in the corner of the kitchen . A pet monkey also appeared on the table for its afternoon drink of milk. It was difficult to work out how many people lived there but we think it was about 8 adults and 12 children. We had an evening meal of fried chicken with rice and hoped we wouldn't have to rush to the 'bathroom' during the night. With the snake safely away in its box, and us all very tucked up in our hammocks hung across the kitchen, Sam went to switch off the light to be confronted by a massive (but only a baby) tarantula. No way was Sophie sleeping with that in the room. Carlos quickly came to aide with a fatal blow from his flip flop - the snake's breakfast for the morning.

After a hot and restless night, we were glad to be up and out on the river for a stunning sunrise. As we left the house, we passed the men setting off on their morning hunt with guns and machetes. Our final activity was canoeing through the flooded forest in search of sloth monkeys. We didn't find a sloth but we did see a number of large iguanas jump from tree-tops into the river on our approach . In another questionable display of ecotourism, Luiz captured a baby porcupine in order to domesticate and add to his list of animals. We felt uneasy with this episode but had little control over it with someone who had lived in the rainforest for the last 60 years.  

We arrived back in Manaus exhausted but reflected on an excellent time in this fabled rainforest. Before leaving we were able to watch the stunning capitulation of Brazil in their semi-final and meet up with Tony, a fellow passenger from the Antarctica trip. We hadn't booked accommodation for this night as we had a 5am flight, so we went straight from the street bars to the airport, a much more entertaining way of killing time than sitting at the terminal counting down the minutes.

Onward journey to Belem.