thats not a knife this is a knife-the pantanal

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Ok so after about 25 hours on the move 3 buses and 1 jeap ride later we arrived in the pantanel home of the giant guinea pig that we have been searching for.

Spent 6 very memorable days here geting up at 5.30am and out forraging for armadilos, caimens, racoons, cappiburys (named steve the giant guinea pig),parrots,toucans, praying birds and lots more.

Did lots of trecking saw armadilos, yes crunchy on the outside smooth on the inside! fished for caimens and piranihs and scrambled round in lots of bushes getting stung by wasps and running for my life.

Our gide was gabrielle who was loverly. Its amazing to see someone running round in bare feet catching crocks and armadilos and things, I got stung by a wasp on the first day and he found some tree medicine to stop the itching for me. I have now decided that i dont like wasps, killer bees or anything that has fangs or stings. Also decided it is not a good idea to go round poking in bushes near any of the above.

Spent 2 days fishing for piranhas in the river where we had been swimming...nice ...which was also full of caimens...great!!! caught 1 fish 1st time as spent most of the time winging about standing in mud and god knows what, 2nd time round caught 3 of the snappy little buggars and then gabrielle cooked them and we had them for our tea ...yum heads eyes and tails loverly!

because we stayed there 5 nights which was longer than any other saine person normally stay we camped out one night somewhere else. My god it was so noicy at night sleeping outside in a hammock..like the m1 for animals. There was alot of shuffling and carrying on going on in the trees and bushes surrounding us i heard wild pigs running around, monkeys howling, birds sqwarking, v noicy insects buzzing away, anteaters, raccoons, horses and im sure there was a jaguar purring next to my hammock in the night (i might have dreamt that bit but there were pumas and jaguars lurking about but we didnt see any).

We went riding at the 2nd camp, i got the horse that just wanted to gallop off every other minute, i dont think it was the trecking horse but one of the cowboys, it was amazing to gallop flat put though through the pampas, after that my ass was sore and whole body was crippled, very memorable!.

Had some good laughs at night, a few nights i deffinatly wont forgett and met some special people. Gabrielle made us necklaces out of some reeds and coconuts we had collected on our walk. I Was really sad to leave this place was deffinatly the highlight of brazil for me.

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Photos

armadilos
crunchy on the outside smooth on the inside

traffic jam
loads of cws being herded on the road by the cow boys, we were stuck in the middle of this!

sun rise in the pantanel
wow how amazing are the colours of the sky.