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Published: June 23rd 2007
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...A kitten with a sore leg! Anyways...Campo Grande, the capital of the area from which you can enter the Pantanal - an area of forest so varied in wildlife and ecosystems, over such a small area that exciting times are promised to lie ahead. We booked on a tour and still with Jimmy and Kev, headed off, eventually after we got the bus got going by us pushing it down a ramp, then re-fuelling it the engine still going so it wouldn't stall again. Hmmmmm. This is a break down of what happened over those few days...
Night one of camp; Watched the sun go down over the jungle. It was like one of those African safari docos, where the sun races down over the horizon and you assume they´ve speeded it up. No. Tis real time speed. Our guide for the next 4 days was razzed matazzed when we met him. He described in great detail 12 times the itinerary for the next morning. He even described the noise of the bell which would go "dong, dong, dong" to wake us up. Not indeedy "dang, dang, dang" as we´d all expected it to go. Kev ate too many
black beans and rice, Jimmy snores like a trooper. Put these, bats, mice and 5 other people in a dorm with hammocks and you don´t get a groovy nights sleep. Oh well, the dong, dong, dong of the bell woke us at 6am.
Day 1; A blood shot eyed guide (Pepino was his name-o), took us to the river where we waded waste deep in waters where we couldn´t see our knees or feet from the amount of grime in it. We could however, see an alligator in the water and the cow pats lining the edge of the water as we tippy-toed amongst them keeping one eye on the alligator, which promptly disappeared under water as we got in. Piranha fishing. Given pieces of beef (which really looked like chicken to me) as bait, we used bamboo rods to catch our lunch. I got a bite instantly, but didn´t hook the fishy so it just got dragged out of the water before plopping back in. A wee while later and Angela does the same thing, not managing to hook the piranha but flinging it into the air, barely missing my head as it disappears into the gloom right
by my tootsies. I got nibbled - kind of softly actually. Advice from Pepino was stay real still...so that´s what I did and all 10 toes still intact ended up catching 2. Me fisher gal.
Luncheon involved fried piranha, with a friendly water pig in the camp that would ´playfully´ram you as you were taking a tinkle in the rural facilities that was the jungle. Didn´t make it easy! Anyway, after that we went for a horsey ride across the savannah plains seeing giant ant eaters, wading through swamp and other such exciting things...I went really fast. The main bain of this activity was that my horse (I named her Phillipa, real name unkown) was covered in ants, so I spent the whole time flicking them off.
Day 2; Hike in the morn, where we took a plant´s leaves, a bit like an aloe vera, and made necklaces from it. Grooby times. You strip it down with a spoon, give it a wash like you would your hair and plait it. It takes forever, but was well worth the effort. Boat ride in the afternoon which was really cool. Swam with more crocs (they don´t appear to be that bothered by us). Angela sat on a teeny-weeny kitten at dinner that night causing it to scream and make the 20 or so people eating stop dead at the noise. From this point on the cute wee thing definitely had a limp. We managed to score a tent that night away from the hammocks. Jimmy got the tent next to us, but I think we were adapting to the snores by this stage.
Day 3; Jeep broke down but managed to get a hike in. We waded through the swamps (where the anaconda live), I got watered on from above whilst watching a racoon type animal. Then we had to head back to Campo Grande where we had a hot shower (have only had 3 in a month!) before heading to Rio de Janeiro.
Now, Angela has started developing some really weird sleeping habits that started back in New Zealand when we were sleeping in the ole grey banger. She sleeps in the footwells where - well, where your feet normally go. People give her strange looks. So on this journey we travelled by semi-cama, where the chairs go back about 20 degrees so you can supposedly sleep. The man in front of her put his chair right back whilst she was on the floor and she got stuck.
We arrived in Rio. Day 1 of Rio and off to see the statue of Christ that overlooks the city. It´s on a hill. We walked the 2 hours up on this beautiful day. It was well worth it - beautiful views, had a wee juice at the top. Very nice. On the way back down I got a little bit mugged by 2 youths- strangled from behind and after an old tug of war and wrestling match was thrown to the floor. Angela hit one of them with her water bottle (enough to scare anyone), and as I hit the deck my bag gave up the ghost and the strap broke. Exciting times. They ran off. Angela legged it after them shouting what she thought was "help" (turns out it wasnt...we don´t speak much portuguese at this stage). I was left on the floor spluttering before I toddled after her.
The police came to get us (very obliging of them). As we got in their car we saw a perfectly formed bullet hole in the windshield - classic. Pure dead genu¡us. We made it to the police station without any trouble and shuffled some forms, descriptions etc. and were quizzed on the English words for certain hair styles such as ´pig tails´(that´s the style my hairs in, in my passport pic!), ´ponytail´, ´tousled´ and so on. Eventually I had all the necessary forms I required and rope buns on my neck from the struggle which actually blistered! We hit the cocktails as soon as we got back to the ´safe part of town´. Come midnight we were ready to hit the town. Went to Casa Rosa, which incidently used to be the the biggest ´red light´(wink wink) house in the whole of Rio. Now ´tis a club. The clubs here are weird. Samba rules and everyone dances like my mum (no offence mum!), with their hands by their sides going from one foot to t´other. When we hit the dancefloor all hell broke loose - comedic dance moves are not the done thing, but by the end everyone had formed a circle around us.
More partyage, trams, digging a hole in Copacabana beach and burying Angela feet first caused much hilarity for the beach dwellers as she got stuck and I had to try pulling her out by her wrists. They loved it - I don´t think many of the beautiful people who hang out there dig holes the depth of a person! Shame...´Tis great fun! We were going to stay another 4 days because much frolicking was on the cards and a biiiigggg football match that we wanted to see. Our visas however, had other ideas as they expired hastily and we had to beat a retreat equally as fast. Back south we ventured...But that´s another story!
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