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Published: October 13th 2009
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So, I haven´t been updating this thing and I had forgotten about my visit to the Pantanal Brazil...so here goes a blurb on that.
I had been on the road by myself for a while..meaning I had left behin Kat back in El Calafate Argentina...I went back to South Chile...got sick...got better...hung out with Piero and his family for a while....flew back up to Santiago CHile...visited Adrian´s Parents..then meanered my way from West ARgentina (Mendoza) all the way to Buenos Aires..where I ended up being suckered into staying for a month...After that month Kat and I decided to meet up again and travel together.
From here we traveled together through Iguazu Falls, then headed into Brazil where because of bad weather we decided to only visit the west side of Brazil...here we visited Bonito for a few days (I wrote a blog on that) then because of me we visited the famed PANTANAL...the largest wetland in the world, which of course meant loads of birds...
But first we had to arrive to Campo Grande to book a tour. Arriving, instantly I knew I hated the city..it was bleak and touts running around screaming in
your ear to book hostals and tours with them. Not knowing where to go nor hide, Kat and I just walked away in some random direction. But two touts followed us....¨Go away¨...we screamed at them but they remained stalking us....finally, we cussed then out and finally they got the hint. After having read grim reviews about tour agencies going to Pantanal, we decided to visit the information center for help on choising an agency. Walking with our big packs, more than 5 blocks away, we arrived to what seemed to be the info center but it was closed. We had forgotten that it was Sunday and nothing would be open till later. The time marked was 7:30am...we threw down our backs on the putside steps and waited. 30 min later, the guard inside took pity on us and decided to open the gates, sat us down, gave us coffee and chatted with us in Portuguese...we managed to understand each other. Two hours later, the one man staff arrived, he looked younger than us, this cool looking young dude, dressed in black jeans and black shirt, despite the blazin´hot rays beaming down on a sunday morning. He tried helping us but
didn´t seem to help us in a ny way...finally he just brought out a list of complaints of all agencies avavilable in the city....¨Look, pretty much, it comes down to 4 good agencies...I suggest you go to all of them, talk things over and then decide¨...With our list in hand, we decided since it was sunday, that none of them would be open and that we were going to have to bunker down in the aweful city of Campo Grande...With no real options of hostals, we went back to the direction of the bus station and once again the swarm of touts were back buzzing in our ears...we just walked straight to the HI hostal in front of the bus station...¨jajajaja, I told ya, you would have to go into my hostal I kept telling you about¨...laughed the tout....We admitted defeat and walked in....¨hello, friends, how many nights, what kind of tour...¨...¨we are just staying one night and we don´t want your tour¨ we scuffed back at the poor young guy behind the hostal counter. We were tired of the touts and we were taking our anger out on anyone that spoke to us...
You see, anyone who
comes to this area is only here to visit the famed Panatanal...so there are tons of agencies who take out tourists for expensinve prices and the quality of the tour is horrendous...most guides don´t care about showing you the animals, so thats the reviews I read in blogs and forumns..,guides seem jaded and are only interested in taking out party people into the ¨wild¨ for a good time. And that´s not what I was there for.
Finally, after a day running around from agency to agency, Kat and I finally made our decision, payed our money and hoped that the company would pick us up 4 days later in Bontio. Sure enough, 4 days later in Bonito, our agency came through...had a van to pick us up and on our way we were.
I was in awe when we arrived...my first bird I saw was the beautiful Hyacynth Macaw..a beautiful blue macaw, that exists no where else but here...an endangered bird at that. Sweet! I was in heaven. In the hot heat we set up our tents (thats how we got the tour that much cheaper)...and we were ready for all 7 excursions to come...from horse
back riding, birding, boating trips, ect...plus all three meals were included! We had a good group and I spent my days grinning from ear to ear in sheer happiness to be in such an area....We saw river otters, Numerous Capibarras (biggest rodent in the world), jabiru storks, caymans and tons and tons of birds!
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