Advertisement
Published: August 26th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Corumba riverfront
The only nice bit of the town Leaving Santa Cruz on the “Death Train” (so named as it used to transport victims of yellow fever), I headed 650km east towards the Brazilian border. This was the first train I’ve taken in South America (as there are so few lines left open), and although it was really slow (16 hours), it was at least comfortable. By far the bumpiest train journey I’ve ever taken though. As soon as I got off the train I was immediately heckled by 2 people from different agencies offering tours to the Pantanal. They were both very persistent, but at least they helped me cross the border, which was easy enough. A short shared taxi from the station in Puerto Quijarro to the Bolivian side of border, a few forms to complete and then a bus on the other side to the centre of the Brazilian border town of Corumbá.
At first Corumbá reminded me of Iquitos in Peru as it has an immense riverfront, but after spending a few hours there I decided I really didn’t like the town. I’d forgotten exactly how expensive everything in Brazil is, plus it really didn’t feel safe walking around after it got dark. All I
really wanted to do in Corumbá was to book a tour of the Pantanal, but the Tourist Office has shut down and I could only find 2 agencies, both at the bus station, whereas I had been told that there were many different agencies with different packages to choose from. In the end I booked a 3 day tour of the Pantanal (with Indiana Tours, 250 reais or just under £100). The other tour agency in Corumbá sends people to exactly the same camp, so there really is no difference.
All in all I would have to say the Pantanal trip was a bit of a disappointment. The Pantanal is the world’s largest wetland ecosystem (slightly larger than France), and one of the best places in the world to spot wildlife. I missed it out when visiting the rest of Brazil as I was in two minds whether it was worth visiting or not; in the end it was cheaper to visit crossing from Bolivia. I had high expectations as the last wetlands I visited, Los Llanos in Venezuela, were so amazing, but here in the Pantanal we just had bad luck and didn’t see that much. The other
problem was that people arrived at the camp everyday from either Corumbá or Campo Grande; for the first two days the camp was so packed it really didn’t feel as if we were in the middle of a wild landscape.
During the three days we did piranha fishing, a boat trip along a tributary of the Paraguay River, a couple of walks through the wetlands, a day safari and a night safari. They didn’t tell us that for the walks we would have to actually wade through water (between knee and waist height), so for the people wearing jeans it wasn’t that much fun. The vehicle we used for the day and night safaris was so loud it must have scared any animals away before we could see them. Plus it couldn’t go off road so the chances of seeing much were never great. That said, we did see some wildlife during the various trips. A lot of howler monkeys (but no photos as my zoom is nowhere near powerful enough), caiman alligators in most rivers, cara cara eagles at our camp, scarlet macaws, blue macaws, toucans (first time I’ve seen these in the wild), the enormous Jacabu stork,
as well as other birds such as ibis, kingfishers, herons and spoonbills. We only saw 3 capybara, (which was quite surprising given how many hundred I saw in Venezuela), plus I managed to glimpse the tail of a giant anteater as it scurried away from us. For me, the highlight was seeing Giant Otters playing in the river, though always from a reasonable distance. These are the top predators here, sometimes even killing the caimans. A lot of the other people at the camp seemed to have much better luck than we did, seeing armadillos, tapir and anteaters close up. It was still a really good few days though, even if I would have liked to see a few more mammals. Seeing parrots flying in the trees above (and making such a racket every morning!) and seeing the Jacabu stork fly above were both really special.
After lunch on the third day I headed back to Corumbá. It was too late to cross the border, so I had to spend the night and cross back into Bolivia the next day. Technically foreigners are only allowed to enter Bolivia once every calendar year, but the law is not currently being
Giant otter
(If you look really closely at the centre of the photo) enforced, so although I was slightly worried there was no problem. The only annoying thing was that I arrived at the border at 11:40am to find the Brazilian immigration office shut for lunch between 11:30 and 2pm, so I had a long wait. The trains from the Bolivian border town to Santa Cruz don’t run every day, so this time it would be a bus ride, which turned out to be nearly half the price of the train and a good 4 hours quicker. But very hot, and the road was so incredibly bumpy for four or five hours in the middle - the driver was racing along, making it almost impossible to get to sleep. This also meant we arrived in Santa Cruz early, at 4am, which was also fairly annoying as I had to wait around for the terminal to open so I could buy my onward ticket to Cochabamba. So the train was definitely a much better option.
From here I’m heading back into the Andes - firstly to Cochabamba and then onwards to Sucre and Potosí, which I was unable to get to before because of the miners’ protests and blockades. The next blogs will
come from there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0369s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb