The Pantanal - mosquitoes and more mosquitoes

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February 28th 2011

Published: April 30th 2011

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Johnny One Eye

wetlands

I have never seen more mosquitoes in my life than in the Pantanl. Quinn got bit over a hundred times ( On her left leg!)

The Pantanl is a wetland region about the size of Missouri spanning southwest Brazil and part of Paraguary. I did not really know what to expect before we got there. I was told that it is one of the best areas to see wildlife and is famous place to watch birds. All this is true but what I did not real realize is that area is essentially a huge swamp, hence all the mosquitoes.

From Foz de Iguazu, Brazil we arranged for a 3 day and 2 night stay in the Pantanal at the farm Pousada Santa Clara, which is about 2 hours southeast of Corumba. To get there required 14 hour bus ride followed by a 6 hour bus ride. The farm was about an hour drive down a very muddy rode. We arrived around 10pm and decided to stay at the part of the lodge down by the river where we could either camp or sleep in a room with hammocks. We elected for a tent the first night. When we arrived

The river next to our place

A great place to relax. Notice anything in the water?

that night there a lot of mosquitoes but it did not seem to bad minus the 40 or so mosquitoes in the bathroom.

When I woke up the next morning our tent had at least 20 or so mosquitoes flying around and many more on the outside looking for a way in. After a brief period of mass murdering mosquitoes I laid back down, wondering how the hell they got in. I then noticed that the little bastards could squesse through the mesh on our tent. The next night we moved to the room with hammocks which was much better.

The place we were camping was about about 20 yards from the river, which has piranha and caymans ( a type of alligator). There was a couple of resident caymans that lived on the bank at the campsite. The first day we took out a boat on the river watch for wildlife. We saw a lot of birds, some monkeys, the head of a large river otter, and some capabari ( These look like a giant 50 lb hamster). We started the boat trip dry then it started raining and so we were drenched, and this was the

Where we stayed the second night

trend for the next couple of days. That afternoon Quinn and tried a little piranha fishing from the river bank, but where unlucky expect Quinn almost had one.

That afternoon and night they took us out in a truck for a Pantanal safari. We saw a lot of crazy birds and more caymans. We did see a really big dead snake it was a little ways off so not so easy to gauge the size. (In addition to piranhas and caymans the pantanal also has really big anacondas). The highlight of the night time safari was when the spotlight was directed off into a swampy area and we saw a dozen or so pairs of eyes looking back at us, which all belonged to caymans.

That evening staying in the hammocks was much more mosquitoes free. The following morning we went horseback riding through the wetlands. This was a lot fun. I am not sure how the horses felt since they had to trudge through a swamp that was sometimes a couple of feet deep. On this trip we did run across a giant blue macaw hanging out in a tree.

That ended our Pantanl excursion and