A bonny time in Bonito
Trip Start
Apr 09, 2010
1
29
40
Trip End
May 29, 2010
Bonito, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The last couple of weeks were pretty damn action packed, so we were much too busy having a good time to do the blog. Until now.
So where were we? I think the last time we spoke we had just been to the Brazilian side of the falls and we had just encountered Satan’s tropical bird of choice. From here we had a quiet travel day to bonny Bonito. Here, the scenery got a bit more jungly rather than open planey, which was nice to see. In Bonito we stayed in the camping bit of a very cool hostel, which had hammocks, a swimming pool and a vast array of burgers and ice-creams.
On our first full day there we did the activity that we had pretty much travelled there for. Bonito is famed for the clear blue Rio de Prata that runs through the jungle outside of it, so we thought it would be rude if we went all that way and didn’t snorkel down it.
First though, Nick, Maike and I visited a bird park whose name escapes me and to see what visual wonders it could offer us. The bird park was actually a kind of 100m deep crater in the ground and loads of scarlet macaws lived in holes on the sides of the crater. At the bottom lived caiman that had apparently been washed down there during heavy rainfall. Not only was it beautiful to see the macaws flying around freely, but we saw vultures, toucans (grrr) and the people of Bonito’s favourite bird (whose name escaped our guide).
Moving on to snorkelling time. We prised ourselves into our wetsuits, got too hot, then prised ourselves half out of them again. I can honestly say that no one looks good in a wet suit. No one. We trekked through the jungle with our snorkel guide lady, who didn’t speak any English other than 'look, piggy piggy’ (whilst pointing wildly at a wild pig in the distance).
We got to water and spent around 20 minutes swimming around a bit of the river that had no current to practise using the snorkel mask. There we saw hundreds of fish in the crystal blue waters. We saw big massive monster fish shovelling the gravel greedily with their faces. We saw tiny slivers of silver fish, that shone like little shreddings of tin foil in the sun (and that kept nipping us with their little sharp teeth, the little bar-stewards).
We then spent the rest of our time letting the current take us downstream whilst we floated and watched the underwater world go by. It was a very strange sensation if you kept your ears outside the water whilst your face was in it, as you could hear all the sounds of the jungle in what felt like surround sound, but all of your other senses have signed up for the underwater experience. Luckily, Nick heard a group of monkeys, so we looked up in time to see a couple of capuchin monkeys skipping across the branches above us.
We went back to the snorkelling base camp (which was like a wildlife sanctuary in itself, with toucans, macaws and hundreds of parakeets flying about the place). We then had a lovely and well deserved buffet lunch, washed down with some delicious dulche de leche.
On the way back to Bonito we stopped off at the supermarket to buy some booze for the evening’s ‘beer fine party’. Over the course of our trip, everyone had accrued penalties for certain things and games that we had played, which equated to ‘beer-fines’. Tonight was the culmination of all the fines, in one big fat party. It was a fun time. I ended up breaking our tent when I went to go bed and Nick was so fast asleep that he didn’t even notice. Fun.
The next few days spent in Bonito were lazy. We spent time snoozing in the hammocks or playing volleyball in the pool. On our last evening we went into Bonito to look around the shops and have a drink. Just so you know, Bonito has the most inventively shaped phone boxes in the world. That’s not fact, just my opinion but I defy anyone who dares argue against me. We went back to a nice BBQ and that night the almighty heavens opened. Brazil doesn’t just do a bit of rain, it does ALMIGHTY rain. Not great when you’re in a broken tent ey.
