A KENDAL teenager has completed a once-in-a-lifetime adventure in the Amazon rainforest.

Alice Wills, 18, spent over a year raising the funds needed to take part in the conservation trip to Peru with the British Schools Exploring Society.

Now she is back from her five-week expedition, Alice thanked everyone who helped her achieve her dream and said she has well and truly caught the travel bug.

Organisers were so impressed with her contribution, they have asked her to return as a group leader — something that will have to wait as she has just moved to Huddersfield to study for a degree in photography.

She said: “The trip was amazing. It was brilliant to travel to somewhere not many people have been.

“A week of canoeing was my favourite part because it was so interesting with all the wildlife. “We were shown the way by Spanish guides who could tell us all about everything we were seeing.

“We stayed in a village called Bolivar, where I was involved in a project to build a chicken coop. It was the first time they had people like us staying there and they were as interested in us as we were in them.

“They couldn’t speak English but they wanted us to know all about their lives.

“It made me appreciate much more what I have.

“They live very simple lives but they don’t know any different and are very happy.”

The former Heron Hill and Kirkbie Kendal pupil also took part in conservation work and helped in a scientific study which collected data on Amazonian wildlife.

She said the trip will leave a lasting impression on her life with lots of plans to travel in the future, adding: “I have just moved to university and it is really helping my confidence and independence.

“I would love to go back to the Amazon, and also to Australia.

“Thank you to Geoff Cater, my media studies teacher at Kirkbie Kendal School, my grandma Dorothy Dawes, Kendal Lions Club and all the congregation at St George’s Church in Kendal.

“Without the support of these people I would have struggled to raise enough money