Brazilian Pantanal wetlands

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Right in the heart of Brazil – miles from anywhere and in the wet season. Good news it only rained one day, but mossies galore. Deet and bite zapper doing the trick, but have to wear long sleeves and trousers, which was a slight problem as Suzanne’s long sleeved T shirt had to be fished out of dirty washing and John’s only long sleeved shirt was his ‘going out’ shirt. A souvenir long sleeved T shirt solved the problem. Breakfast was at 0600 every day and we were in the boat by 0700 – captain was a local lad called Chico. We saw an amazing variety of birds, the highlight being the hyacinth macaw which is huge colourful and very rare. We had capybara (huge rodents the size of small pigs) wandering through the camp – actually quite cute and good gardeners. Lucy and Joe; we saw a huge iguna, he was an ugly brute just like the one we saw in Leeds - hope you like the picture.

We were privileged to visit Chico’s village, which was only accessible by boat – no jetty , we just tied up by the river bank. We met the village grandma who looked ancient but was probably only in her 70’s. Incredibly the school (2 classrooms) had a computer room with internet access and the supermarket which only sold plastic containers and sweets – the dentist only visits twice a year!

One trip was in the back of a pick up truck sitting on a garden seat bouncing up and down with every hole in the mud road – no elf and safety here!

John's now on his second camera memory card - over 1000 shots so far (deleted about 40)

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Photos

Iguana
This is specially for Lucy and Joe

Nico's village
Only accessible by boat

The village supermarket
Not quite Tesco's

Nice view 1
Taken at 07.00

Water hyacinth
Chico loved speeding through this chicane as we squealed

Muddy road
This the view from our 'park bench' in back of pick-up

Hyacinth Macaw
Suzanne's favourite

Black-collared hawk
Chico threw a pirana into the lake for John to photograph - hawk much too quick!

Cabybara
These were as good as lawnmowers and fertilised as well.

Chestnut-eared Aracari
We called them 'Toucans'

Jacana
Also called the 'Jesus bird' - any ideas why?

Emerald humming bird
As small as a leaf and difficult to spot

Comments

[teresa feldman]

Jacana
They are called Jesus birds because their very long toes give their feet a large surface area. They can walk on lily pads without sinking them so they appear to be walking on water.

[woodsinsa]

Teresa - Jacana and owl
yes you are right about the jacana! It's a very pretty bird and we saw lots of them. We found out the owl was a burrowing owl after we had done the blog. You could be a guide here! Birthday was amazing and the lodge kitchen made me a birthday cake