English girl: “Rambo, what’s the machete for?”

Rambo: “For… killing English” maniacal laughter

Group: stunned silence

Our guide was a real jungle man. Born in the Amazon, Rambo worked for 8 months as a UN peacekeeper in the Congo, which basically makes him hard as nails.

We set off traipsing through the swamp, looking for an anaconda. The water gets almost to butt-level, so the gumboots are more to prevent snake bites than getting your clothes wet.

Whilst on the swamp walk in thigh deep water, one of the guys stepped on a 2 meter cayman alligator, which lept up into the air in surprise, before dashing away into the mucky water. It definitely isn’t safe out there. Apparently a Japanese girl was bitten recently on the leg.

We found a little baby anaconda which was promptly removed from it’s habitat so that the tourists could pose with it. Not something that should be done, I didn’t touch it myself.