Northern Pantanal - day 4

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Our last day sees us up at sparrow fart again, for our last attempt to try and find the Giant Anteater that we saw on our first night, and has been evading us ever since. Once again he is successful in avoiding our futile attempts at tracking him down. We spot lots of animals, but no new ones that we have not seen on the previous days.

After promising to go on a diet after the Pantanal, we tuck into out last buffet breakfast and make sure we get our fill, as the next three hours will be spent canoeing down the Rio Claro. It is a nice way to see the bird life as we are silent in our approach and less threatening at 2 feet off the water. There are Kingfishers everywhere eyeing for a mate, and plucking fish at ease out of the river. We spot a lot of birds, but it is really overcast today, and the light terrible, so it makes photography from a moving canoe difficult. At one stage a group (not enough for a flock) of Golden Collared Macaw's fly into a nut tree above us, and I try and get some decent shots, in the end i had to shot +3 exposure and high ISO to get any colour through...

After a while, the arms and back are aching, and all of the food we have eaten recently is acting like an anchor. So we about ship and head back down the river to the Pousada. Guilt does not stop us from hoeing into another lunch buffet, and then it is time to do the dreaded packing of the bags. Then with a couple of Caiprihina's each under the belt, so strong that you could run the combi off them, we unwillingly head back down the Transpantaneira towards civilisation. Then the bloody sun decides to come out in earnest for the first time in 5 days!

It does make for one of the most amazing sunsets we have ever seen though. It lasts for 40 minutes, with the colours changing from a golden glow, to fiery oranges, pinks and eventually blood red. Then the full moon rises, enormous in size and the colour of the sun. We are running late to get back to Cuiaba, so unfortunately no time to stop for photo's, but the image will last with me for a long time.

Arriving back into Cuiaba, we find ourselves hungry again, and head off to have Churasco, promising each other that the diet starts tomorrow...

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Photos

Typical Pantanal Bridge on the Transpantaneria
There are 170 of these over a 150km stretch of 'road'