Muito Bonito
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2006
1
14
19
Trip End
Mar 03, 2006
Bonito, Brazil
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Hi All:
We arrived in Bonito on Saturday and were very relieved to get out of the jungle and into an air conditioned room with... a bed!!!! beds are good for sleeping in, better than hammocks in rooms full of mozzies, tarantulas and vampire bats. At the end of the pantanal tour, the tour guys dropped us off in what they referred to as the closest "town"...which was actually a police station and a shop by the side of the road. It was funny seeing the policeman rush to hide is somewhat extensive porn collection when all these gringos turned up...but he was nice and let us watch the samba competition on his TV. Instead of waiting for the bus we grabbed a lift with a local, not so legitimate, taxi service. It was good, cheap, airconed and got us to bonito a few hours earlier than the bus would have.
Bonito is absolutely amazing...it is, well, bonito...or muito bonito actually...we spent a day of kicking back and lazing in the pool, learning how to make caparice and just generally recharging after the jungle experience, then hit the local attractions with full force :)
Yesterday we went on a river floating experience which was absolutely outstanding. The rivers here are amazingly clear, you can see for as far as you would expect to on the reef. There were hundreds and hundreds of fish, some 1/2 the size of me. Unfortunately we didn~t see any anaconda or piranha...but the experience was breathtaking none the less. We then went to a big bloody hole in the ground (second biggest in the world) and saw macaus coming home to roost. There are over 350 000 different species of birds in the pantanal region.
This morning we went to see Lago Azule...which is a limestone cave with a lake at the bottom...it~s called azule because of the neon blue color or the water. It was amazing, and, in one of those amazing coincidences, the reflection of the stalectights in the water spells out the letters LA (Lago Azule). The lake is 153 meters long under the cave and 80 meters deep...unfortunately (or fortunately, depending), a few years ago some biologist found a species of shrimp in the lake that isn~t found anywhere else in the world...so now you only get to look, no swimming :) But still, absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful.
Tomorrow we´re off to another lake and jungle trek (a rope walk through the canopy of one of the local forests) before heading to Foz do Iguazu (Iguazu DFalls) and then to the south coast of brazil to find an island and chill out for a bit. Only a few weeks of travel left (we have both been crazing thai, beer and the comfort of our couch recently)...can~t believe we~ve packed so much into such a small amount of time, and made so many great new friends along the way.
Love to all our family and friends...thanks for following along on our adventures.
Cheers lots
Adam and Eve
