Brazilian bathos: Beasties to Barbarella

Q: Can you name a swampy area the size of France that is full of unpleasant creatures?

A: France

(Alternative answer: the Pantanal in Brazil)

It was a fairly uneventful, if long, journey that took me to Cuiaba, a town located just 60km from the official centre of the South American continent and the gateway to the Pantanal. The increase in heat was noticeable: temperatures rarely dip below 90 degrees there. A transfer took me 3 hours along the never-finished trans-Pantanal highway (a dirt track) to the eco lodge where I would stay for the next 5 days. An extraordinary place.

The Pantanal borders the Amazon basin, but is somewhat different to its rainforest neighbour. The biggest contrast lies in the absence of trees. The Pantanal is essentially an enormous flat plain that floods for part of the year, and for the rest of the time is just swampy. Lacking in any natural resources to plunder (few trees & diamonds, no oil etc), utterly inhospitable to humans, and largely lacking in any transport infrastructure, the Pantanal is regarded as one of the few remaining wildernesses in the world. Cattle are ranched there, but the giant herds are spread out over huge areas, and have to be evacuated every year to avoid the worst of the water, many dying in the process. All this means that the Pantanal is stuffed with animals that have no fear of humans and spend the majority of their time sunning themselves and eating each other. I have never seen wildlife like it. Huge capybaras and caymen strolled around and through the lodge, macaws squawked from the trees, giant storks swooped through the air and anteaters occasionally loped by. A word on anteaters: perhaps one of evoution´s most quirky by-products, they seem to bumble through life ill-equipped to deal with the ongoing survival-of-the-fittest challenges. When viewed from a distance through high grass, they seem to move like Jim Henson creatures, bounding along with their ragged hair bobbing up and down as if pulled by an unseen puppeteer (as all puppeteers should be). They are entirely lacking in aggression, and their chief defense when attacked is to hug their assailant, albeit with their long nails stuck in their back. They also have tracks that look like those of a barefooted child. Not very terrifying.

Each day our small group awoke just after dawn to head out for a morning excursion before the heat of midday confined us to the lodge. Another excursion in the late afternoon, and one in the evening meant that we were pretty bushed by the end of each day. Most of the trips away from the lodge were variations on the animal watching theme, with trucks, horses and canoes propelling us through the landscape. A couple of giant wooden towers constructed near the lodge provided different viewpoints of the surrounding area, and also attracted curious howler monkeys.

One of the finest mornings was spent in the company of a local guide called Eddy. We began the day fishing in one of the small lakes near the lodge. An easy task given the multitude of fish, we quickly had more than a dozen for the next part of the day - feeding the caymen. Unfortunately, we didn´t manage to bag any piranha. They are more readily available later in the dry season when the water shrinks and they start eating their neighbours. At the peak of the dry season they even take a pop at the drinking cattle, and some of the locals are missing fingers / noses / nipples after having been caught by starving piranha at the wrong time of year. Eddy took charge of the caymen feeding, and impressed us with his ability to tickle the giant monsters´backs while not getting attacked. His sole defense was a small stick that he used to tap the snouts of the caymen. After some great photo moments, Eddy went to grab his pet anaconda for the final encounter of the morning. I had hoped to go in search of anacondas in the wild, and could have done so in the Pantanal. The problem is that they are very difficult to find and somewhat rare as the caymen seem to like their taste. In any case, Eddy´s pet was wild enough and took a liking to basking in the sun on my head. It then bit me hard on the hand. A wonderful morning all round.

The one main problem with the Pantanal was the mosquitos. Hundreds of millions of the bastards. Who would have thought that a stagnant tropical swamp in the baking heat would be such a breading ground for the tiny devils? These tormenting insects were rather more aggressive than any i´ve encountered previously. They attacked me through my clothes and wouldn´t be put off by a simple brush of the hand, but rather had to be punched off one´s body. My back resembled that of a plague victim by the end of my stay, despite countless applications of various forms of repellent on my body and clothes. I even had a daydream about mosquitos that went something like this:

A creature in an overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat obscuring its face walks into a dodgy kebab shop in the East End of London. Its voice is distorted by a strange, sucking lisp. It asks for something ´off menu´from the fat, greasy man behind the rancid counter. After a brief conversaton, the creature is led into a dark and dingy back room. The shop´s owner is careful to lock the door behind the pair, and then removes a folder from a heavy safe in the corner. He removes a picture of me eating a large steak in Argentina from the folder, and says to the thing in the overcoat, ´is this to your liking?´ The creature throws off the overcoat and hat to reveal that it is in fact a giant mosquito, and replies in its horrible voice, ´oh yes, that will do very nicely indeed´, running one of its legs excitedly up and down its proboscis.

Anyhoo, I was extremely sad to leave the Pantanal. The other guests were intelligent and entertaining people to share a beer with in the evenings and the constant onslaught of animals was proving addictive. I nearly signed up for a horrendously expensive extension into the Amazon, and may still do so before departing from South America.

I had to fly through Brasilia to get to Rio on the coast, and had decided to stop for a couple of days. I wish I hadn´t. Brasilia is the single most unpleasant city I´ve ever visited. The work of f**k-witted 1960s modernists and town planners, the place is utterly devoid of any humanising elements. It´s like a giant Milton Keynes, but without the charm. No pedestrianised areas, traffic everywhere, and some of the ugliest buildings it is possible to imagine. Brasilia is nonetheless the capital city of Brazil, and home to most of its legislative organs. I tried killed some time by visting some of these organs (specifically the heart and the pancreas) in the company of two Brasilian divorcees. They always seem to be in pairs.

I stood in Brazil´s senate and congress chambers trying hard to be impressed. Indeed it was interesting checking out the state-of-the-art security systems at each congressman´s desk (thumb print recognition system etc), all surrounded by decor that one occasionally finds in unrennovated flats in London. The problem is that modernism does not age well. Uncared for buildings begin to look derelict very quickly, and those with the highest status (eg the parliament) are well kept, but still look like nightmarish 1960s visions of the future. Austin Powers style guards in jump suits patrol the corridors with ray guns strapped to their belts, and one is searched upon entering the buildings by an improbable machine that scans one´s body for dangerous objects. They call it an ´X-Ray´machine, but it seems too implausible to be true.

I sought refuge in a shopping mall in Brasilia for much of my time there, had a haircut and several burgers, and left for Rio hoping for more excitement.

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