I already felt like I was in some sort of Enid Blyton book - the Rainforest of Adventure, or something.
But when our guide announced we were to plunge into neck-high water to glimpse some freshwater dolphins, it really got into Boy´s Own territory.
It was our last full day of five in Ecuador´s Amazon basin region and we were getting a lesson in why they call it a rainforest.
It had been belting down since the early hours and the jungle trails, which a few days earlier had been a spongy mass of fallen leaves, were now a Glastonbury-esque soup of mud.
We had seen little that morning but it was still great fun to trudge between the trees, trying to see through my rapidly misting glasses.
None of us were going to miss the chance to see the small pink dolphins, however, even if we only got brief glimpses of the endangered animals´ stubby noses.
We jumped in, soaking any bits of our clothes that had escaped the rain, and it was well worth it.
One girl lost a Welly in the process - sparking a 20-minute search - but the episode was a great end to our spell in the Amazon.
Staying in a wooden lodge - its sides partially open to the wilds to allow a bit of air into stifling room - it was inevitable we were going to encounter a few uninvited visitors.
The most annoying were the mosquitos who, undeterred by the net around our bed, instead feasted on my paler parts during my numerous night-time trips to the toilet.
We also had a regular visitor to our "bathroom" in the form of a boggle-eyed frog.
One evening, I spotted him sitting happy as Larry in between a pair of my underpants (a rather classy pair of burgundy briefs) and some of the One With The Commmon Sense´s bloomers (gaudy pink but just about presentable).
At least he had the good sense to choose the clean ones.
However, it was a third type of visitor who most disturbed me.
I was nibbling at a biscuit one afternoon and had assumed its soggy texture could be put down to the effects of the humidity.
When I noticed a bite missing, I guessed the One With The Common Sense had got to it before I had.
Only when she flatly denied any thievery, did my mind return to the rustling at our bedside table and the mouse disappearing into the wooden slats of the wall the previous night.
It appears I was eating a rodent´s leftovers.
Still, I scored a couple of hits for humankind in the battle against nature´s nasties by trying a few jungle delicacies.
Firstly, there was a scoop of ants which tasted like lemon sherbert.
But my favourite was a little white grub which had been living inside a coconut-style seed from a tree.
After Jakob - our guide - cracked open the nut, no-one else fancied popping the larvae into their chops but I was happy to give it a go.
Sure enough, the wriggling creature tasted just like coconut - really nice. (I have to admit to spitting out the rubbery skin, though)
We had seen eight types of monkey on walks through the rainforest and boat trips on the Cuyabeno river, which runs through various tributaries into the Amazon.
It was comical to watch them tumble from the treetops into lower branches, although it proved almost impossible for my less-than-nimble fingers to catch the speedy blighters on camera.
For me, the bird life along the river was just as spectacular.
High above us, we spotted several blue and yellow Macaws - more graceful than their noisy cousins the parrots, which we watched taking an early-morning dip at the banks.
There were numerous kingfishers, bright yellow flycatchers and yellow-headed vultures casting an expert eye for carrion from their high perches.
But most impressive were the toucans, their huge beaks silhoetted against the sky.
Among their prey are the eggs of yellow-tailed oropendolas, whose nests dangle like huge earrings from branches in a bid to avoid the thieving predators.
For me, however, simply being in the jungle and listening to its noises was a delight. When the driver turned off the boat´s engine and we drifted downstream, you could hear a cacophany of whistles and croaks made by who knows what animals.
Actually, Jakob could name most of them.
A "knock-knocking" noise turned out to be made by a tree frog, rather than a woodpecker. Meanwhile, we caught the heartbreaking lament of an owl that cried "boo-hoo-hoo-hoooo", rather than hooting.
Legend has it that it fell in love with the moon, which refused to come down from the sky so they could be united.
A night walk revealed more creatures, including a tarantula bigger than my hand, huge centipedes and stick insects.
We all treaded as quietly as possible and did our best to avoid disrupting nature, including ducking below the delicate web of a spider.
That is until The One With The Common Sense - probably the shortest person in the group - forgot to allow for the enormous bun atop her head and ploughed through the whole thing.
Meanwhile, another of the highlights was an evening spent piranha fishing. Or rather, on my part, an evening spent getting very frustrated while dangling a bit of raw beef from a simple rod.
I got plenty of nibbles and at one stage had one of these infamous fish a foot out of the water but, alas, he got away. It´s not as easy as crabbing.
At least our boat driver caught one so we could admire its teeth before he set it free.
Worryingly, we had taken numerous dips in the same stretch of river as we fished.
Despite this, we survived with all our toes after drifting blissfully with the current, while wearing a lifejacket to save us doing anything too energetic - like swimming.
It´s truly amazing how many uses you can find for jungle creatures and plants... but I never expected to find myself whipped with nettles.
Jakob had told us about the antiseptic properties of a blood-red tree sap, which can be used to clean sores.
Meanwhile, he also showed us ants with huge staple-like claws which indigenous people have used to stitch wounds on account of the ants retaining their grip for hours.
And when he found out about my bad back, our guide insisted he was going to give me a good lashing.
Firstly, he gave me a quick going-over during a walk through a jungle community, to the fascination of the rest of our camera-toting group who watched in awe as my back exploded into angry red lumps.
Swearing by the healing properties of these stinging plants, he then encouraged several of the girls into various states of undress as he tried to ease a variety of swollen tendons.
Sadly for him, however, he had far more luck with me. I spent part of my last evening at the lodge lying on the floor, stripped to the waist, and displaying a half-moon as he tried to aid my lower back.
For 30 minutes he whacked me. I quickly became numb to the stings but I never quite got used to the tiny thorns which raked my back every few strokes.
The worst moment came when a twig came loose and lodged itself in my underpants. With every whip it charted a worrying southward path until I yelled for him to stop and removed the offending material.
By the time he had finished, my back had ballooned and was an alarming shade of red.
A soothing rub-down with menthol oil helped and I have to confess to feeling very relaxed, though I´m not convinced it did that much to cure my sciatica.
More to the point, I´m still sporting several bumps around the base of my spine and find myself removing the odd sting from my upper buttocks.
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