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Published: September 4th 2009
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Hours on the truck
Cards & Beer. Planning your beer to toilet stop ratio is VITAL! Another early start to get to the Pantanal. We'd covered most of the distance the day before, so we set off really early and arrived at lunch time. The ranch was really nice, and even had a pool with waterfall.....bags were swiftly dumped and i headed straight for it. After that was an all you can eat lunch with tons of steak, all different cuts carved as you liked.
Feeling much better we headed to the jetty for a boat trip and to try our hands at Piranha fishing. It started really well, was getting loads of bites, then about 6 Caimen decided to turn up, which scared them all away, so we teased them for a bit, they got their revenge on us the day after..... Only 2 of the group managed to catch one, but we only had 20 minutes, i'd have been more than hapy spending the afternoon lazing on the boat with a cooler full of beer, but there you go. The boat cruised round for a while longer, then we headed back. All of a sudden it started to rain, serious rain, so the planned night safari was cancelled, and we all sat down to
another all you can eat buffet feast.
Later that evening after a few beers, the rain eased off, and our expert guide got us into the big roofless safari jeeps and said we should go for it. 20 minutes in it rained, big time, the wind was nearly blowing the jeeps over and the thunder and lightening was incredible. We had no cover from trees or anything, we really were in the middle of nowhere. Then it got really bizarre. The rain suddenly stopped, as did the wind, it was really really still, it went oddly quiet and from pitch black to light. Our guides face dropped and he started screaming at the drivers who spun the jeeps around and belted it back at real speed. The storm kicked off again even worse, the rain was so strong it hurt. Just as the jeeps pulled up it started to hail, big hail. I was running for shelter and took one to the head the size of a marble. Everyone thought it was a big piece of hail, and to be fair it was, but just as we got under cover it really started. It went from marbles, to golf
balls, to tennis balls. We were all huddled under this little terrace with brand new terracotta tiles. That was a bad idea, it was smashed to pieces, as was the rest of the ranch. They just had all the tiles done 4 weeks before, as well as brand new solar panels....all destroyed. After 20 minutes hiding we ventured out to a scence from Twister. All the gardens were ruined, pots smashed, most of the thousands of tiles gone, the solar panels were in a million pieces. Even a car windscreen had been done by the hail. Thats when we all realised how lucky we were i think. We were literaaly in the middle of the wetlands with no cover, good job we raced back!
All the rooms were flooded, beds soaked, and it was still raining, so getting no better. The ranch staff got to work and patched things up really well to be honest, while we found a bit of shelter and got to work on the vodka & cachaca. Incredibly, the staff managed to serve us a huge feast cooking by candle light and using the BBQ. The dining room was pitch black & flooded, but the
food was amazing again, fair play to them. That was a late night!
We were up early for a day safari....which suprisingly was rubbish. I think all the animals were destroyed by the storm the night before. The Pantanal is famous for its wildlife, we saw about 5 birds. Ah well, we knew we had yet another all you can eat lunch back at the ranch, definitely the best thing about our Pantanal stay.
In the afternoon a group of us went back to the river, this time in kayaks, and not those safe ones that don't tip, proper old school ones. It was so scary, especially when the waters are choc full of piranha and big Caimen. A good few times it really really nearly went over. At first one of the Doncaster girls got in our boat and almost tipped it at the jetty, so she was immediately ordered out. Gliding past a pack of 6 Caimen in an unsteady kayak is great fun, especially as we'd seen the power of their jaws the day before as we were teasing them!!!! Made it back alive, and cockily rowed the last stretch backwards.
We tried another
night safari later on, it was rubbish, we saw the eyes of a Jaguar from about 500 meteres away, the guide got really excited, but it was pretty poor to be honest. Huge BBQ and all you can eat feast that night, which, typically ended in a late drunken night.
Still i was up bright & early for my first ever stint at horse riding. Riding through the pantanal looking for wildlife on horseback is amazing. Didn't see anything of course, everything pretty much dead, but was a laugh. My horse was the slowest horse around, so i spent 2 hours way behind everyone else. It did try it on with another horse, and got a kick for his troubles. Now, he was slow untill a random Gaucho shot past our group on his horse, at which point, old dobbin thought he'd go for it. I thought that was it for me, he full on sprinted with me holding on one handed, as we were taught, gaucho style. Apparently my group could just hear some giddly manic laughing follwed by me flying past in a blur. It was seriously scary, but i wanted to do it again straight away.
Bird catching Piranha
Jordan not catching Bird catching Piranha Quick all you can eat feast, then we hopped on the truck for our drive to Bonito, which was cool as we got to ride on the roof of the truck.....
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