The Pantanal
Trip Start
Jan 23, 2006
1
25
28
Trip End
Jan 31, 2007
Mato Grosso, Brazil
Thursday, May 4, 2006
We've been having too much fun to write...
We booked ourselves on a 3 day Pantanal tour (Pantanal comes up on my spell check as Pant Anal!), an area populated with Alligators, Anacondas, Piranha's, Jaguars, Puma's and vultures. Unfortunately the only one of those we saw was Piranha - dished up on our plates in a tasty batter - Mark 1, piranha 0.
The Pant Anal was amazing, and activities were numerous - no time to rest there! Up at 6, walking in the jungle looking for animals mentioned above (none spotted!), then lunch, then fishing for Piranha's (none caught!), then night walk, then beer, then dinner, then sit around huge camp fire, then beer, then sleep, then up at 6 to walk in the jungle, then ground hog day.
On the walks we did actually see quite a lot of furry, scaly, feathery creatures. Ticked off on the list were, in no order of preference, lesser anteater (lesser than the Giant anteater, which remained well hidden for the 3 days we looked for him), armadillo (7 banded not 9), coche (guinea pig type), capybara (large guinea pig type, about the size of a pig) - it is the worlds largest rodent, and probably the ugliest. Other ticks were placed next to the Hyacinth Macaw, the largest parrot, royal blue with yellow around its eyes, Monk parakeets; Black faced parakeet, toucans, and about 50 other birds whose names escape me. There were plenty of Caiman, a non aggressive (apparently) alligator type, which can grow to 4 meters long! Bigger than any croc or gator! We had the good fortune of seeing caiman and it's troop of babies crossing the road. A guide jumped out and grabbed a little on, which was pushing 20cm's!
We even swam in the river there, home to 45 million Caiman, and many piranha's - my swims were short and fast; Thorpedo style...
We really loved being in the Pantanal, we met some great people, and it reminded us a bit of being back home in a game park.
Moving swiftly on, we bussed to Bonito, a town built for tourism. The main attraction is a river that is crystal clear and full of fish. You float down the river in a gentle current, for 1.5 hours eyeballing various makes of fish. We also visited the Banhero Municipal, the water was freezing but after a good cycle getting there, a dip was in order. It is very expensive to do any trips there, so we keep it short and sweet. Cave diving there is also an option, but prohibitively expensive.
Ditching the busses we have decided to fly to Bahia de Salvador, which is Brazils cultural capital. It is in the region of 44 hours by bus from where we are!!!
Catch you in the next episode
M & A
