Pantanal

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We booked a four day tour pretty much as soon as we arrived in Corumba, a town just on the outskirts of the Pantanal. It´s a bit of a nightmare - you get pestered as soon as you arrive on the train which makes it very hard to make a coherent decision, especially with the infamous old Greek guy hanging around. If you go, you´ll see what I mean.

We set off early on the first day, driven into the Pantanal on the back of a truck to our camp: a small cabin with a hammock and eating area, situated by a huge lake. All very nice except for the weather which was rubbish, meaning we spent the whole first day playing cards or swinging in our damp hammock. Still, nice to be out and about eh? Did see the best animal ever though - a small anteater that stood on its back legs trying to fight our guide. See pic.

Day two started badly. The rain had been hammering down all night and into the morning. We stared another day of boredom in the face as we sat eating our breakfast of rice rolls (seriously).

Luckily, the rain stopped and we were soon setting out on a day-long safari into deep Pantanal. We stopped for lunch in some woodland, after spending the morning animal spotting. We saw plenty of wildlife - monkeys, tucans and other birds, racoons, gunei pigs the size of dogs... oh and alligators. After an afternoon stroll around the bush with our guide, we headed back to camp with a flash torch/night safari style jaunt. Saw a deer.

On the morning of day three we were meant to be horse riding but all the horses had escaped in the night. So we had a walk instead... through anaconda and alligator infested swamp! Didn´t see any of the beasts but had an interesting walk spotting some good stuff.

They managed to find the horses so after a nice lunch we were on the back of our horses, ready for some cowboy action. Ye-Ha!? Riding the horses was really good fun, even managed to go quite fast at one point until the pain in my groin became too much to bare. We spotted an alligator at one point and a guide promptly ran over and grabbed it, bringing it close to us to see. Pretty cool! As the sun set over the lake we rode back, through deep water and such like. Great afternoon.

On our last morning we waded out to another lake to try and catch some piranhas. Bamboo rods in hand, we hopped on a boat and fish in the blazing Brazilian sunshine, very nice. Beginners luck saw me hook two very quickly, although with one I panicked and dropped him back in. You should see the teeth on them. No one caught anything else except our guide, who caught enough for lunch. We headed back and relaxed in the sun, ate the fish then said goodbye to our home in the wilderness, before heading out on a truck.

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Photos

My horse...
I shall call it "Get well Roon"