As time passed and the trip to Peru was actually going to happen, a few other things came to mind as "must find" things in Peru. Firstly did they still wear the jazzy football jersey? I´m delighted to say yes they do and they are evident everywhere. Secondly, would vast tracts of Peru be completely devoid of people as it seems that most Peruvians have emigrated to busk pan pipes for the aural joy of the world? And thirdly, perhaps most importantly, could I find those responsible for abandoning Paddington Bear to his plight in London?

On this third point we had a starting place. "Darkest Peru". Now I can´t be sure, but I´d wager that´s just got to be the Amazon. So after seeing Lima for a couple of days Heide and I turned our eyes towards the world´s largest river, the Amazon (I know the Nile is longer but this is bigger, if that makes any sense) and the area that, in the future, will be known as the former site of the world´s largest rain forest. We took a flight to Iquitos, the world largest (something thematic brewing about world´s largest here?) city with no roads connecting it with the outside world. After the flight we had to take a ride by speed boat for a few hours along the Amazon and then off into the incredible dense network of lakes and rivers that are all along the length of this mighty waterway.

Normally I think you´d say that a boat goes in the water but this beast we were in was actually more like a low flying aircraft. It had the kind of engine that you´d typically see on a naval frigate and the kind of speed that gives super boat "Miss Bud" a serious bout of propeller envy! I think we may have splashed down a few times on the journey but that was only so that we could create mass wash that would nearly swamp the fishing canoes that worked the waters. Much to the delight of the driver I should add, and, well, yes, it made me smirk like the naughty boy in class too. Heide knew better that to snigger out loud, but she was laughing on the inside!

When we landed at our jungle lodge www.muyuna.com some 130 km´s and about 12 minutes from Iquitos, we were greeted by a couple of things: momentary calm after the thunder of the engines then and enormous cacophony of noise from who knows what kind of creatures. But, given the volume I´ll bet a few of them were the world´s biggest whatever they weres! The lodge was a collection of maybe a dozen rooms built up on stilts that were well appointed and apparently free, on the inside at least, of anything particularly deadly. Excellent!

Given that it would take me the best part of eight months to hack my way through two and half feet of this incredibly thick jungle the best way to move around this place is by boat. Which we duly did in order to spot some interesting and hopefully highly venomous creatures. Our guide, the absolutely remarkable Ucile, could spot anything that moved and plenty, such as the sloth, that didn´t particularly do much; except live high in tree tops filling his belly with semi fermented leaves. Frankly this man´s eyes are probably unmatched in human kind, if he told me he could see Pluto through the trees I´d probably believe him. Yet despite how impressive his eyes were it was his encyclopedic knowledge of the fauna and flora of the Amazon that really set him apart. It was like having David Attenborough along for the ride as a guide but with a better grasp of the local lingo. He was excellent. After a few hours of watching monkeys, birds and billions of bugs doing what ever they were doing (for the mossie´s it´s easy to say what they were doing; gorging on my red stuff) we headed back to the lodge for some great food before readying ourselves for a trip down the river in the dark to see what takes over when the curtain of night falls. It was superb. The noise was intense, apparently mostly it came form frogs. Well clearly they must have been the world´s largest frogs to be that voluminous but better than this was jumping out of the boat, in an area infested with Caimen, I should add, so that we could get a close up of an astonishingly beautiful pink toed tarantula. Gorgeous. And look, a killer scorpion but ooh I wouldn´t tred there, that´s a pit viper. One nip from him and you´ve only got an hour to live and even with the flying speed boat we´re not going to able to get you to hospital in time. Superb.

The nighttime noise never really let up and so by first light, at about six, most folk are up and ready to go and find something deadly to gawp at. Not content with merely gawping Heide and I decided we wanted to get a bit closer and catch some animals. Piranha was our game. The small issue of never having been fishing before didn´t seem like much of an obstacle. Let´s face it, if some 8 meter Anaconda can catch eats in these waters so could we.

Heide it transpires must come from a long and highly esteemed family of fisher folk, she could not miss. I kid you not on her first cast she pulled in a gorgeous fish. It was definitely a keeper; which was great because all the keepers were going home with the boat man, Jorge, for his family that night. She even managed to catch one fish who missed the bait, just took the hook, she reused the bait with exactly the same effect. Unbelievable. I´m beginning to suspect her heritage may just be a bit more Scottish than Norwegian! Meanwhile I´d hooked a few reeds, a log or two, cast into the bank and was recoiling at the foul smelling bait (perhaps Heide was showing here wisdom in not wanting to touch that stuff when she deprived the fish of it!) Eventually I snagged my first fish. I think it was a Baby Pygmy Tiddler that was teased by the rest of the skoal for being the runt of the roe pod. This potential beast of the deep was thrown back to grow bigger and stronger to fight again. Or rather it would have been if a giant fish hawk hadn´t swooped down and said, with a lick of the talons, "ahh hors d'oeuvres" and promptly devoured him. Sorry mate. But then it happened, my wife the untamed Hemmingwayesque scourge of the seas that she is, only went and bagged a bloody big Piranha! It was truly gorgeous, beautiful shiny silver scales and a fabulous red underside. And obviously a set of teeth so ludicrously over sized and sharp as to make me desperate to test just how sharp they were. Ucile restrained me saying that I´d have nowhere to wear my wedding ring if I got any closer. We eventually headed back to the lodge with a bountiful catch; even I´d landed a couple o´bigguns too!

En route there was an ominous rumble of thunder and a serious blackening of the sky. Then it started to rain. And rain and rain and bloody pour down. This is the rain forest after all. In seconds we were just as wet in the boat as we would have been if we chosen to swim home. This was momentarily funny until we realised that we were sitting a small metal boat on a large expanse of water and the sky was spitting lightening with venom and worrying regularity. Still we made it back home for another wonderful meal before regaling all and sundry with our fishy tales over a few beers.

We next went out to find snakes and snakes we found. One of the guides, Victor, was something of a Peruvian "Crocodile Hunter" and when he spotted a snake calmly stalking some unsuspecting prey he yelled "a snake.... I´m going to catch it!" As you do. And that was it, he was out of the boat in the potentially deadly waters, in the dark, grappling with a snake. Oh it´s not poisonous he told us as the snake was coiling around his arm and trying for all his worth to bite the hand that had grasped it by the neck. All good clean family fun then.

In our time out at the lodge we also saw river dolphins, both pink and grey and learned a very great deal about the indigenous people and how logging interests are threatening this incredible environment. It was an absolutely amazing experience and one can only hope that future generations will be able to marvel at it as we have. However I was not able to find Paddington´s family. Perhaps this isn´t Darkest Peru after all!

At the end of another rapid "boat ride" we're planning to spend a night in Iquitos before heading off to the mountains.