I HATE snakes. Big time. So it wasn’t clever to be trudging through the Amazon rainforest at night. I should have known it would end in trouble.

My girlfriend and I were staying at a riverside lodge, deep in the Cuyabeno jungle reserve, while backpacking around Ecuador.

One evening after dinner, our guide, Edison, told us that the staff were going machete fishing — not for machetes, but with them. We were welcome to tag along.

My girlfriend was happy reading, but I put on my wellington boots and joined the others on the jetty.

Eight of us piled into the motorised dugout canoe and sped upriver. Water levels were low and when we reached the big lake, Laguna Grande, it was virtually empty.

Leaving the canoe, we trudged across the soggy lake bed before plunging into the trees. We emerged at a series of shallow pools that harboured handfuls of fish, mostly piranhas. Hence the machetes.

The men stalked their prey by torchlight before delivering the killer blow, while I helped the women gather the dead fish on the bank.

It was fast and furious, but as stocks ran dry, the fishermen spread out and the lodge chef followed a stream into the undergrowth.

“Pancho,” shouted one of his friends, “blah, blah, blah... BOA... blah, blah, blah... ANACONDA...”

My Spanish was nonexistent, but I made out these two words very clearly. I was, apparently, surrounded by a carpet of seething serpents.

My heartbeat accelerated to machine-gun speed and I leapt from foot to foot to avoid contact with the ground, while swear words spewed from my mouth like a bad case of Tourette’s syndrome.

Taking pity on me, Elvira, the beautiful young kitchen assistant, took my hand, smiled and talked to me in a gentle, calming voice. I couldn’t understand a word of it, but it was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to me.

I clung to her like a comfort blanket, her hand clamped firmly in mine and her torch press-ganged into duty.

After what seemed like an age, Pancho returned in one piece. It was time to go.

Still scared, but at a reduced state of alert, I stuck to Elvira as we splashed our way back across the mud. I only really relaxed back in the canoe, where Elvira settled down with her head on my shoulder.

Back at our jetty, the others drifted off, leaving Elvira and me alone. I proffered a few “muchas gracias”, but she effectively silenced me by pressing her body to mine.

Maybe my earlier short circuit had unplugged my morals, but we had certainly added to the steaminess of the jungle night by the time we spotted the nightwatchman’s lamp heading our way. Quickly, Elvira gathered up her clothes and ran back into the camp.

It was the closest I had ever been to having sex with someone wearing wellies.

I tiptoed back into my hut and slipped under the mosquito net, next to my slumbering girlfriend.

“Catch anything?” she muttered sleepily.

“A few,” I said. “But you should have seen the one that got away,” I added guiltily to myself.