What? You're not ready yet? You'll have to hurry! We've got an 8:30 appointment with a Vert Intense guide, but this time it's not to climb the Soufrière volcano but for a canyoning trip. You don't need much, just a bathing suit and a pair of socks.

Here we are in the heights of Gourbeyre, on what is known as the Palmiste plateau, where we'll meet up. Here we meet up with our guide and other participants, making a small group of 10 in all. The guide gives each of us a long wetsuit, a neoprene jacket, a harness, a helmet and a pair of garden shoes, as experience has shown that these are the least slippery in the river.

So we put on our great equipment and get ready to start the forty-minute approach walk to our first abseil. Right in the heart of the rainforest, our guide tells us all about the vegetation around us. The forest is so dense that some plants have to use the trees as support in order to get closer to the sky and thus capture the sun's rays more easily, and to feed themselves. Contrary to what you might think, they don't use the tree but extend long roots down to the ground - these are epiphytic plants.

After wandering through the rainforest, it's time to descend the riverbed to our first abseil, a little further down. We're now at the top of a 7m waterfall, which we'll have to descend, but first our guide explains the abseiling techniques. Once we've got the hang of it, the bravest of us goes first, the others follow one by one, and in no time at all we've all mastered the first step!

We continue our descent of the riverbed, abseiling one after the other - there are five in all, the highest of which is around 15 metres long - followed by jumps and slides, both of which can be bypassed if the difficulty is too great, or started again if, on the contrary, we loved it!

The last jump lands us straight in the Bassin Bleu, where our canyoning session comes to an end, and we take the path back to our cars. It's time to take off all our equipment and thank our guide for an extraordinary day full of sensations.

For those of you who would also like to do this activity with Vert Intense, here's where you can book, but remember to do so well in advance, as they do small groups and places go quickly.