Eventually Ecuador's roads into the Amazon basin give out, and you have to take a boat to get further east (pic). This is how all the non-growable or -choppable supplies get to the local villages and tourist lodges: necessities such as fuel, clothes, tools, toiletries and pharmaceuticals, medicine, iPod accessories, football gear and beer.
We spent two hours winding our way down the Cuyabeno river. At first it looks impossible for the foreigner to spot any of the fantastic fauna lurking in the thickly forested banks, but you quickly pick up the technique. This consists of waiting for the guides to shout 'anaconda!' (pic) or whatever, and spend five minutes patiently pointing out where it is, while you scan the greenery in puzzlement. 
This is Samona Lodge (pic), where I'm staying for the next three nights. It's right by the riverside, in the middle of the jungle and only accessible by boat. Venture into the forest out of here and you'd instantly get bitten or stung by something poisonous, and then get lost. Maintaining a lodge is an exercise in holding back its inevitable reclaim by nature: every five days apparently they have to treat all the wood to stop insects eating it. The water comes from the river, there's solar-panel electricity only between 6pm and 10pm, but the food is excellent, my personal wooden cabin is comfy (I have a dorm to myself) and the rich soundtrack of bird and animal calls is delightful. Clearly I wasted my time studying electronic music – I could just have recorded this and I'd have got a first.
In the evening we went out on the boat animal-spotting again. This is a very well-camouflaged owl-like bird (pic). I took quite a few pictures of empty sticks and tree-trunks before I finally got the one I was supposed to.
As the sun set in Cuyabeno lake, we went for a swim (pic). I'm happy because I've just been told there are no piranhas here after all. And that other alarmist stories about dangerous creatures for men immersed in Amazonian watercourses are also untrue.
We went for a night trek into the jungle. Some monster spiders and bugs, armies of leafcutter ants hauling loads five times as big as them, and some cool frogs (pic).
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