My trip to the Amazon rain forest

In April 2007, I went on a great adventure to the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador. I went with Miss MacVicar as part of the Primary 7 project about the rain forest. I got some really nice pictures.

The Amazon forest is very big; probably bigger than the size of the whole of Great Britain. It has the River Amazon running through it and is just south of the equator so it is very hot; but it also gets very rainy at times so it can be quite muddy. I'm glad I took my wellies with me...

The forest is huge. I climbed up one tree and looked all around but all I could see was trees for miles around. The next picture is of me climbing a tree. It was very very high up. I was so dizzy. Afterwards I was told that there are lots of spiders and snakes living in the trees. I didn't see any in this tree but I saw some later on.

Miss MacVicar took me to a village where local tribes-people live. It was quite a way up-river and we had to go by canoe. It was nice in the canoe. It reminded me of the boating lake in Bellahouston Park. However there are Alligators and scary fish which bite you in this river. I deffinitely didn't put my fingers in the water. No way...

The villagers were really poor. In the olden days, traders had guns and used to bully them. They would take all their chocolate and coffee and not pay them enough. Nowadays, we have "fair-trade". That means that the traders (or at least some of them) pay the proper price. So if you see fair trade coffee or chocolate in the shops, it means that we are helping out the poor people in South America and Africa, so that they can earn a living and not be poor any more. Miss MacVicar can explain that better than me. Please talk to her in P7 if you need more information.

Anyhoo...We visited the village and I made a lovely friend called "Kermit". This is a picture of us together...

The villagers were friendly and I learned a lot about how they hunted for food. The next two pictures show me trying out their blowpipe and spear. It is very hard for them. They can't run down the shops for a curry or anything. They need to fish or catch wild boar or other wild animals

The villagers are also very artistic and they like to make nice clothes and pictures and have musical instruments to dance to. The last picture is me playing pan pipes. These are very popular in South America and I also saw some of these when I visited Peru in May.

I hope you enjoyed the story of my adventure in Ecuador. I had a really nice time.