Blogs from Pantanal, Brazil, South America - page 7

Monday 7th April Awoken by the lights being raised around 6am, and breakfast follows shortly after. Not long after we arrive at Quijarro where our transports awaits, and we leave Bolivia easily enough (taking the opportunity to change money at a good rate). We drive all the way into the town of Corumba before we formally enter Brazil at the bus station. Santa Cruz had already felt quite familiarly Brazilian, but now I start to recognise names/brands, etc! After a supermarket stop, we head for the Pantanal. We stop at the Parque Hotel for a buffet lunch (includes rice & beans of course!)... I'm not feeling too good again so don't eat much. Next = transfer to the Jungle truck and meet Levy, our guide for the next couple of days. We head to our nightspot, ... read more

Picture a flat flooded landscape, strange pig-like, pig-sized rodents grazing on the short grassy islands, beautiful gaudy macaws glide above cawing noisily, cows wallowing neck deep in tea coloured water. Sunsets that reflect golden hues in every direction, a world you could invert and almost see the same. I ride a stocky pantanal horse, a mongrel breed that descended from those strong enough to survive the extremes of the world's largest wetland. The sunset envelopes and encloses me - the silhouettes of my amigos a few hundred yards ahead - we head back towards the farm come pousada (guest house) that has been the base for the last few days. The horse flinches, a riderless pony shambles closer, chisel teeth bared - without me would my stoic steed behave so aggressively? Unsaddled it proves so. It's ... read more

...The Iguacu Falls, a trip to the wilderness, getting stuck in the mud, and worst walk in the world... Hi there, how is life? Im not too bad myself, a bit drained physically, and all my clothes are dirty, and im struggling to find the apostrophe on this ramshackle keyboard, but cest la vie. (really could have used an apostrophe there, you may have to bear with me on this one). Ten days since the last installment, better crack straight on... So we left Rio and headed to Foz do Iguacu, a city on the Brazilian side of the falls. Incidently, we intend to do the Argetinian side tomorrow, but youll hear about that when it happens. We didnt see any of the city, because there isnt really much to do except two giant landmarks located ... read more

Ola amigo´s Upon our arrival at Foz Do Iguaçu we were greeted by an enthusiastic staff member who questioned our sanity were we to not visit the Pantanal, several hours north, the worlds largest area of wetlands (as we were to see), encompassing the worlds most dense flora and fauna ecosystem. We conducted a little further research (my only reference to date was John Grisham´s ´The Testament´ where the main character contracts Dengue Fever and is nearly eaten by tribes) and were in agreement, we could hardly call ourselves adventurers if we were to deliberately shun an area host to between 10-35 million cayman (alligators). Adequately persuaded, we took a 15 hour bus to Campo Grande, and transferred from here to the Pantanal, approximately 7 hours away. In order to get to the heart of the ... read more

Pantanal So after leaving Bonito, we headed into an area called the Pantanal. It covers land in both Brazil and Paraguay and is the world's largest wetlands, covering 75,000 sq miles. We were dreading the journey there because we had to be carted in on what can only be called a tram (though they called it a 4x4) and we'd been warned that the journey would be a mossie heaven. As we had already spent the last 2 weeks scratching every inch of our bodies, we were not looking forward to more. Luckily the journey itself was not too bad and only took about half an hour to get to this lodge, where we were to spend our first night. Our main activity for the first day was to be none other than Piranha fishing. Now, ... read more

In Paraty our first nights of camping were postponed as the weather was so wet that the campsite was pretty muddy so we upgraded to a hostel! The hostel was idyllic and the next day was quite sunny so went for a swim in the sea and swam out to a little island. The next two days were spent travelling, only stopping for lunch and toilet breaks. It sounds boring but the days actually go quite fast watching the scenery, reading and sleeping. Those nights we free camped which means just stopping by the side of the road to camp. Both times we stopped near service stations though so we have always had toilet facilities. We entered the Pantanal on Saturday and stayed in a beautiful lodge that day. The Pantanal is a wetlands the size ... read more