BONITO

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I woke at 630 am the next day and left at 7 with Katie (Sam wasn’t feeling so hot, so decided have a rest day) in private car to Rio de Prata about an hour away from Bonito. The welcome site were some wooden clad buildings set in beautiful gardens where there were green parrots everywhere feeding on the bread and milk that had been put out for them. We got into our summer wet suits and got our snorkels then took a ride along a dirt road and then a 2km walk through forest to the ‘starter pool’ . The wet suits were good protection from the mosquitoes but got very hot as we walked the 2 km. The river Prata that we were to be snorkeling down had a natural current from the springs which takes you down but we were instructed that we were to keep our legs extended and immobile and were not to touch the bottom so as not to disturb the natural habitat and also no sun cream or insect repellent was allowed to be used.

Even in the ‘starter pool’ the fishes were quite amazing and they got so close you could almost touch them. The next 2 hours were spent snorkeling down the river watching the fish go past, also spending some time at a large pool with a huge spring where it was really difficult to touch the bottom due to the pressure. The fishes ranged from Dorado, Pacu, foraging fish, sucker mouthed catfish, striped fish, The last part was a 5 minute boat ride in a very quiet electric boat where you could take in all the vegetation and birds. We also saw a taliper by the side of the river! Unfortunately no pictures as we didn’t bring any money with us for the waterproof cameras available to hire. It was rounded off by a an amazing buffet lunch. We returned to the hostel a little exhausted and happily Sam was up and about and feeling a lot better.

The next day was spent travelling first back to Jardim then getting on a bus some 4 hours later to Ponta Pora which I the border town with Paraguay. The 4 hours was spent finding a post office to post things, playing Chinese checkers whilst drying our washing resting on our backpacks in the blazing sun, whilst we sat in the shade, what a sight! We arrived in Ponta Pora at 745pm and headed to the nearest Pousada, which was more like a truckers hostel, but only 6 pounds each for the night.

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