Bye bye emus

Well first things frist, we~ve put up a load more photos, including our Pantanal trip ones, so check them out. We put the Bonito ones on the Pantanal blog, and vise versa... by mistake.

We´ve now departed sunny Bonito and arrived in sunny Curumba - it´s been consistenty in the 30s the last few days. Tans are coming on nicely, and a little bit of sunburn too - even though laura was wearing factor 50, grr. Anyway, as we said before, Bonito was just a dirty track, basically. We saw people quad biking around the place which looked like fun, but we decided against it as you can do it anywhere, and on Friday went ´tubing´down a river of the clearest water we have ever seen! even in the deepest parts you could see all the way to the bottom (including footprints of people who must have fallen out of their ´super tuber´. For those who don´t know, tubing involves sitting in a rubber ring (most of the time, anyway... well some of the time) and floating... some of the time. The river had rapid sections and little waterfalls.. it was great (and cheap). If anyone´s planning a trip to Bonito, it´s worth staying at the hostel international place, as they can organise all the trips, and provide cheap transport and all the information your heart could desire. Also, haggle - we got our rooms for 18 after the guy originally offered 25 (we did the exact same here, also at the hostel international place, but got 17 instead!). Keep at it - their lowest price isn´t their lowest.

The next two days were pretty similar. We went to Bonito with two Beligians that we met in the Pantanal - Karen and Quentin. On saturday we all went to a place called Balnaero Municipal (i think), where we also bumped into Matt from Campo Grande. We went back the second day because it was a) a million times cheaper than the other stuff Bonito has to offer, and b) amazing. Essentially it is a natural swimming pool at a large corner of the river we tubed down. It´s just as clear water, but also chock a block with fish (Matt says they were Doradoes) - huge ones at that - between one and two feet mostly, with some mosters in there. We fed them corn and jumped at them all weekend, though failed to catch any! It was nice to be able to just lie back and relax after the exhausting Pantanal trip. Technically Bonito is still in the Panatnal, which is why we saw a few emus around, and those huge white birds with the red necks and black heads (and we do mean HUGE - 4-5 feet tall!).

Anyone planning a trip to the pantanal should definatly take a rest in Bonito afterwards, and do it soon - it´s on the verge of becoming a tourist centre. At the moment only the main road and one other are tarmacked, but that probably wont be the case in a few years.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures. Tomorrow we´re off to Santa Cruz (on the DEATH TRAIN!) in Bolivia. We should be able to go online there, but who knows.

Also can someone confirm exactly when laura can expect her A level results for us! Muito obrigado!

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Part of trip: South America 2005

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