17-year-old Ashley Gurr decides to take a break from the ice in Northwest Territories, Canada and go deep into the Amazon rainforest to study Science. In this episode of the Road Scholars, the grade-12 student travels from home in Tuktoyaktuk, where the temperature can drop to 60 degrees below zero, and goes all the way to hot and humid equatorial Ecuador. Then she sails up the Napo River until she's deep in the rainforest, where she lives like Swiss Family Robinson.

In Ecuador, Ashley gets to jump back and forth between the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere of the planet Earth. There she also gets to climb up and down the middle of the world monument. She gets to eat the traditional Ecuadorian dish of cuy, a guinea pig roasted whole. While the others keep talking nervously about the little eyes and the little claws of the cuy on the plate, Ashley eats it and compares it to the caribou, seal and whale blubber which she eats back home in Tuk.

In the Amazon rainforest, she gets to go above the top of the trees, swing on a vine, step on a big spider, kill ants with her tongue, and stroll around among butterflies. Out of the rainforest, she gets to hike up the Cotapaxi, a mountain covered with snow and where she feels a lot like home. While the others are tired out and trying to catch their breath, Ashley flies around with her videocamera asking if anyone needs help because of altitude sickness.