Blogs from Pantanal, Brazil, South America - page 10

The Itaipu Dam (almost) and some retail therapy After bidding a sad farewell to Iguazu it was time to head even further north (hurrah for the beautiful weather) into Brazil. Time and money constraints meant we couldn't stay for long, but couldn't come so close without visiting a couple of key attractions. First on the hit list was the Itaipu Dam, a hydroelectric dam on the Paraná River located on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. It's impressively the second largest dam in the world and provides 80% of Paraguay´s (guess who has the largest proportion of renewable energy in the world) and 25% of Brazils electricity. We were slightly less than impressed with the fact that the lake for the $25bn dam flooded a set of waterfalls, Sete Quedas, which were apparently more impressive than ... read more

After arriving in Cuiaba in the early hours, we promptly checked into the rather dreary Hotel Samara and bedded down for the night. Eduardo our guide for the next 4 days arrived on time at 8am in a pick up and whisked us off to the pantanal, a massive area of wetlands, considered to be the best wildlife viewing area in South America and also the best place in the world to see Jaguars in the wild. We´d booked a tour through a company on the internet, called open door tours, and had arranged a 3 night stay at the Jaguar Ecolodge, situated deep in the heart of the pantanal and within the grounds of a 1200 hectare registered Jaguar reserve. The start of the pantanal (Pocone) was a couple of hours drive from Cuiaba ... read more

The Pantanal is apparently Spanish for swamp. It is a large expanse of land in South West Brazil which continually floods and dries out. As a consequence, it is a very fertile area and there is a huge amount of wildlife. Rather surprisingly it is 100 m below sea level. I was on a three day trip with a company called Pantanal Trekking. We were living in a small camp in the middle of nowhere, several hours drive down dirt roads from the nearest town. At the camp we were sleeping in hammocks and eating pretty basic food: rice, beans, beef and fruit and spent the evenings chatting around the camp fire drinking Skol beer - the local brew. Over the three days we did a number of treks in the swamps, horseriding, pirana fishing ... read more

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! ... read more

The pantanal is one of worlds most amazing wetlands that spans across paraguay, brazil, and bolivia. The pantanal is known for beautiful scenery and its wildlife. So we decided to take a three day tour of this area and discover the world largest wetland for ouselves. Day One: The first day was not actually part of the tour but rather a trannsport day. The bus ride was a little bumpy but our driver was cool because he looked just like mr miagi (i should have taken a pictures. We were lucky to have a great group of two dutch girls and an english couple. Our lodge was very simple.. I small room on stilts that was surrounded my muddy marsh. Around the lodge there were various bird species, camens, and the largest rodent in the ... read more