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Published: March 13th 2007
On the truck
on our way into the PantanalAfter the relative comfort of Bonito we jumped on a bus and headed for the Pantanal. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Pantanal it is a huge wetland teeming with critters of all sorts of shapes and sizes.
A few hours on a bus was followed by 2 hours on the back of a truck on a rough old road right through the middle of the wetland. We met our guide for the next 3 days Paulo who was a character. He grew up on a cattle property in the Pantanal and was a classic country boy - but Brazilian. His accent (when speaking Portugese) was really different (almost Mexican).
Our accommodation was simple but cool. Pretty much camping but some group members were not really prepared for roughing it. We decided to use our shiny new tent which was good because it kept the mossies off and prevented the bats from crapping on us as we slept! Met some other travelers there including some Aussie travel snobs who pissed everyone off.
Well the Pantanal has the odd animal! We saw Caimuns (little crocodiles), alligators, capybaras, toucans, jabirus, herons, wild pigs, armadillos, piranhas, howler monkeys,
foxes, bats, kingfishers (and mountains of other birds) and more…..
Paulo liked to find each animal and then Steve Irwin style annoy the shit out of it. It was hilarious! He ended up having a screaming match with a couple of male howler monkeys when they thought he as moving in on their lady friends.
We went fishing for piranhas but I couldn´t quite hook the little devils. Paulo just jumps in the water and kind of scares them onto his hook! As we discovered piranhas don´t usually eat meat of any kind, they eat fruit. They only eat meat when they are really hungry (eg droughts) and it is a one in 10 year type event. Paulo caught us some fish and they then took us to a nice little campsite and cooked them up for us on the fire with rice and veges. They were small but yum. We also made some traditional Pantanal jewelry.
We went for a cool horse rise after that and even Dan worked up a canter (sometimes not by choice). Kristian, Dan and Kathryn had dud horses that wouldn’t move their bum. Kristian kept yelling vamos to his horse (lets
Wading through
I guess it is a wetland go) but it wouldn´t listen. Unfortunately Dan´s horse reacted every time! Very funny!
The heat and the mossies at night weren´t so bad but the Europeans couldn´t hack the pace and didn´t enjoy the Pantanal too much. It was just like camping at home for us!
Went for a cool boat ride the next morning but didn´t see any anacondas which was a bummer. We did get to see three types of kingfisher and our driver was cool.
Back on the truck the next morning for a long trip to the Brazilian/Bolivian border.
Ben and Dan
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