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Published: January 28th 2008
After 16 hours on a bus we arrived in Campo Grande with the intention of leaving the next day to start our 4 day tour of the Pantanal.
Unfortunately, we were forced to postpone the tour after Julien came home at 6:00am blind drunk and proceeded to deteriorate quickly... Mental note, we´re too old to go out drinking with 22 year olds from Finland!
So... the following day we headed to the Pantanal to see as much wildlife in the Brazilian jungle as possible. Almost everyone staying at the ´lodge´was European or Australian and it was really refreshing to be surrounded by english-speaking tourists after 5 months of struggling with spanish and portugese.
Our lodgings were interesting to say the last, but on the brightside, our room had a resident spider and a frog in the bathroom! Further, the capirinhas were strong, the beer cold and the company entertaining so who could complain!
Day 1 saw us trekking through the jungle for several hours in search of animals. We saw howler-monkeys, caimans (a type of alligator) and a varied assortment of furry creatures that we can´t name in english let alone portugese. Whilst it was interesting to
see the landscape (similar to a savannah rather than the dense jungle i had imagined), the lack of animals, 35 degree heat, stifling humidity and constant attack by mosquitoes took a little away from the experience.
Day 2 saw us up early to go on a 3 hour boat ride along the river. We had hoped to see many animals including river otters, caimans and anacondas. Unfortunately, the animals seemed to be hiding from us (surprise, surprise) and other than a few herrons and capyburras (the world´s largest rodent), we saw very little wildlife.
Later that day, we went ´horse-riding´for a few hours... In reality we were riding mules that had seen better days but regardless it was a lot of fun and trying to get these tired old animals to gallop was hilarious. As the photos might suggest, however, the mosquitoes were treacherous and covering our entire bodies in repellant and clothing still failed to save us from being eaten alive.
Day 3 was probably the most interesting day of our trip given we spent the morning fishing for piranhas in the river running right beside the lodge. It really was a great experience hauling in
terrifying little piranahs and seeing for ourselves the teeth and jaws of such a ferocious carnivore. Luckily, our guide was on hand to unhook the little critters and get them ready for us to eat later in the day! Mental note... when your guide is missing a finger from his hand, its probably best not to touch the piranhas until sure they are dead.
One of the highlights of the trip was definately seeing bright lights surround us on our way to bed. At first it seemed like our eyes were playing tricks on us, but in reality we were surrounded by fire flies... quite different to those in Disney cartoons but absolutely beautiful nonetheless.
Whilst our wildlife experience in the Pantanal wasn´t as great as hoped for, we met some great people and had a lot of fun.
Next stop... Rio De Janeiro!
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Narelle
non-member comment
ROUS'!
You have seen Rodents of Unusual Size in the flesh. I sure hope you have seen The Princess Bride otherwise you will be reading this with head tilted to the side and saying "huh?".