Advertisement
Pantanal Aligator
We saw so many of these aligators swimming in the river, bathing on the marshes and sunbathing on the banks Day 139 - Day 143 (15.05.07 - 19.05.07)
After our exhaustive travels in Argentina, we had really come to love the country and all is had to offer, it is a country so vast and diverse that we will most definitely be back in the future! So crossing the border to Brazil again, was both a little sad but also quite exciting, the tropical heat was well sought after after the cold of its next-door neighbour!
The Pantanal
The long awaited trip to the Pantanal in Brazil, had finally come, we had timed our South American tour around it, much to the confusion of fellow travellers when they listened to our random zigg-zagging route bunny-hopping across borders and in the long run creating much more long bus journeys and spent-money for ourselves........anyway it paid off! December to March is rain season in the Pantanal region - it is a time of heavy rainfall and animal hybernation aswell as unbearable swarms of mosquitoes.....thus we did not want to be around in this season...so as April and May are the best months in the whole year to visit the area to be guaranteed to see most
Pantanal wetlands
aligators were hiding in these waters, just waiting.. wild life as the swamp dries up and the animals soak up the sun before the summer heat comes into full force.....our timing was immpeccable (if totally planned)!!
The Pantanal, an open swampland larger than France, is an area not-so-visited by travellers, as it is on the far west side of Brazil and is little less easy to get to than other places - it is also arguably one of the world's best places to see animals and birds - a place where there's more wildlife than nightlife! The wildlife here is truly wild, but not at all shy and the whole time we were there was like being in well-stocked animal park.
We joined a tour, with an apparently local guide whom had grown up on a farm in the middle of the pantanal and so not only knew his stuff but had a hawk-eye for spotting animals great and small. Leaving the little town of Campo Grande, a 6 hour minibus journey later led us to the entry point to the wetlands, we then transferred to an off-the-road type open-top jeep as the road ended and a dirt track led us between the trees and along
Pantanal Howler Monkey - king of the jungle!
these little guys screeched and roared like lions, could here them for miles around, pretty scray when your trying to sleep at night! the marsh deep into the heart of the Pantanal. Within minutes we were riding alongside caimans (aligators) soaking up the late afternoon sun in the marshland, millions of birds flying overhead, and stalks swooping low across the wetlands as they caught that night´s dinner - already we knew this was going to be a fantastic trip!
Ecological Expeditions
Buried deep in the swap, far far away from any visible signs of human life, was our camp and home for the 4 days in the wetlands. The hosts - local tribes people - live entirely self-sufficient out here, thus our camp was a real nature-filled experience. A circular, wall-less hut housed our hammocks, which were surpisingly comfortable, though the mosquito nets were less than successful in keeping the biting bastards out. Adding to the noises of the swamp, were wildpigs, cows, chickens, goats, that we saw running around and also for lunch the following day, best pork we ever ate though!
Exploring the area was a 4 day trip, in which we experienced and got involved in many ways. Our guide Pepino led us through the wooded areas of the wetlands, creeping through the trees on
the hunt for wildlife spotting, and he was good at it! We heard way before we were to see them, the howler monkeys that roar so loud and powerfully they sound like lions, very scary in the night! But actually the howler monkeys have a bark bigger than their bite, and we were rather suprised to see how small the kings of the jungle really were, when they were jumping between trees high above us! Also we spotted blue macaws, tucans and other parrot type birds flying overhead. Hiding in the trees and bushes were tiny deers - not much bigger than rabbits, armadillos and the very cute capybaras - giant guinea pig species, whom we saw a lot of over the few days we were here, they live in families, so you see the complete clan strolling around all over the place, but mostly close to the water where they swim off when anything suspicious comes along!
We were guided along the river in a little metal boat, another way of exploring the area, from where aligators were literally swimming alongside us (we were told they don't have much of a taste for humans thankfully) and somewhere beneath
Red macaw
we saw red and blue macaws everywhere, they were very noisy and hard to photograph though! us was the mighty anacondas, but unfortunately they were being shy whilst we were around. Christian and the boys braved it and dived to cool down despite the obvious danger....and lived to tell the story. Our guide was quick to stop the boat, lose the engine and point out wild life including a green iguana perching on a tree branch high above us, we don't know how he saw it as we struggled to see it through its camaflage even when he pointed it out! Also we saw kingfishers, storks, vulchers who always sat on dead trees, and so many more that we don't remember their names and the famous jabiru storks which are the symbol of the pantanal and absolutely huge, one of the worlds biggest birds, very special to see.
Another day, we fished piranhas in the river, and whilst standing in the swamp, with home made bamboo fishing rods, using the prior days wildpig as bait. It was a successful hunt, everyone caught something, some smaller than others...they drove a hard bargin though and were extremely hard to kill, even when we thought it was all over they would bite through twigs when put in their
jaws, a knife through the brain, stabbed and twisted finished them off eventually though! Later the boys, whilst standing in the swamp, de-scaled and gutted the fish, feeding the bits back to fellow piranhas that were swimming aound their legs - fried on a homemade fire, they tasted good, and the best part was the head which had loads of meat on....a well deserved meal.
We rode horses around the wetlands, trotting and gallopping (sometimes uncontrollably) through the marsh, including areas of river and streams, with aligators swimming alongside under and between the horses, they didn't seem to be bothered, unlike us! Along the way we were seeing birds, aligators and huge vulchers feeing on dead cattle. It was agreat day, but we had sore bums from the horseriding, and scratches and cuts from riding through nettles, thorns and stuff, the horses were more hardcore than us!
The night-safari we went on on the last night was great, we saw so much wildlife, including tarantulas crawling by our jeep when we broke down (not good timing) and ant-eaters scurrying around, more capybara families, aligators sleeping, racoons, bats and more...it was an animal bonanza!
The whole panatanal experience
had been so great, an eye opener mostly, and the whole time we felt like we were explorers for David Attenborough or some wildlife programme, it was very cool to be so close to animals we have only ever seen on TV! We came away with millions of mosquito bites (thankfully we had been taking malaria pills) and worse still sandfly bites that bugged us for weeks after, aswell as amazing memories and photos, it was one of the highlights of the trip!
Bonito
Leaving the Pantanal, we stopped off at a little place called Bonito, which means beautiful as it is a stunning area of natural beauty. There were several trips we could have done to see the area, but short of time, we went snorkelling for 14km down a crystal clear river, which was full of many big fishes, the water was so clear and we were so close to all the fish it was like being in an aquarium, there were anacondas around too, but once again we missed seeing them, thankfully this time, as we would have been very close to them!
Last time in Rio de Janeiro
Say hello to our little friend...
the cutest poser we met the whole time, but with a but of a temperment! Afterwards, we headed east for 22 hours and returned to Rio de Janeiro for one last time, it was like a warm homecoming pulling into Rio again. We stayed for a week with the fantastic Amorin-Suhett family, and explored the waters of Rio from their boat which was so much fun, we open-sea fished and went wakeboarding in the Rio sea alongside Copacabana beach, ate great brazillian food and enjoyed ourself immensely with the family! It was very sad to leave Brazil for Chile, this time we know we won't be back for a while, but we will definitely be back to Brazil!!
Once again we are way behind ourselves putting these blogs on, as you can see this was about 2months ago now, since then we have been to Chile and Easter Island (blog coming soon) and now we are in New Zealand, and leave for Australia tomorrow! Hope all is well with you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0429s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Tim (ANS)
non-member comment
Urrrrgh Spiders!
Glad I'm just looking at the pictures!, what was that horrible creapy crawly thing?. Will sleep a bit better in Urmston tonight not having to worry about that horrible lot.....