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Published: January 13th 2009
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January 6, 2009 two days of “Bush camping”
It seems so strange because it is hot and rainy here in Brazil and it is hard to imagine that this is January and not July. We are camped off the highway on a sandy road in the middle of the forest/bush. We are on a two day journey to the Pantanal, a huge wetlands area reputed to hold more species of wildlife than any other place in Brazil. So we have pulled off the highway, pitched our tents and cooked dinner…and then eaten it and cleaned up in a light rain. Fortunately for me, I have a good dry tent and that is where I am right now.
The drive was very scenic, rolling green hills with farmland, a variety of trees and palms, and ocassionally heavily forested areas. We have passed a number of towns that have industrial manufacturing, and all of these are surrounded by a tall fence topped with barbed wirea.
Lots of cars are on the road, mostly small cars about the size of a VW Golf, which they call a Gol, along with Renault, Peaugot, Chevrolet, Ford, and other small cars. Trucks are bigger,
sometimes two trailers hauling goods. The roads are pretty good, and we were on a toll road today for quite a while that was very well maintained.
January 7, 2009
Up at 6 a.m. and bkfst of fruit and cereal; didn’t rain last night, which was good, but the tent was sandy and damp when I put it away.
Drove all day; scenery is rolling hills, lots of cattle and eucalyptus tree stands, tall and thin like matchsticks. Saw some Ostrich like birds called a Rhea also. The soil is very red here, must have a lot of iron in the soil.
Hot, maybe 100 degrees in the truck; forgot to bring my little thermometer this time, have to buy one I guess.
Its 5 pm. Probably stop about 7 pm. or so., and I am on cook duty tonight, not sure what we are having. Got my 12 volt inverter and charger to work though, so I am going to try it in a minute or so and see how it works on the computer battery.
Everybody on the truck is dozing, this will be the second night “bush camping”, I think we
First night bush camping
This is a commercial forest area would all like a shower and some clean clothes; tomorrow we will arive in the Pantanal, at our hostel camp ground, and we will at least be able to clean up.
9/8/09
Passed through the town of Miranda today. Had lunch at a small place serving ice cream and deep fried empanadas; I had one with ham and cheese and one with chicken. They were both great, and a good change from the primarily vegetarian diet on the truck so far.
Turns out our truck is broken, too. When we arrived in our campsite last night (which was a gas station parking lot), our driver spent a lot of time under the truck, and then recruited several of our young men travelers to help him jury-rig a repair to a broken rear spring. This will need a more serious repair at a garage, but hopefully will get us through the bulk of the trip.
Jan 8, arrived at the Pousada Fazenda Santa Clara.
To get there, we disembarked from the Truck and got in the back of an open pickup truck, on bench seats and drove for an hour along a dirt road.
The Pousada
Fazenda Santa Clara, our hostel in the Pantanal, is quite nice, with a small swimming pool, bar, chairs and hammocks to relax in. Laundry facilities, and a place to do your own laundry by hand if you choose.A TV and game room (but no phone or internet), and a dining room serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a salad bar and hot food buffet, and a bar with cold beer, bottled water, and some mixed drinks.
The Pantanal is the largest freshwater wetlands area in the world, covering 54,000 square miles (in Brazil alone), a bit North of Paraguay and East of Bolivia, with more than 600 species of resident animals.
They tell us that all of the land in the Pantanal is privately owned, with small “farms” like this at about 2500 acres, and the largest at about 125,000 acres. The predominant agricultural activity here is raising cattle, although during the drive in we did see other tourism based ranches. Our host here at Fazenda Santa Clara told me that the owner of this “farm” sold 900 head of cattle last year, so it is quite an operation other than being a hostel.
We have four
activities included in our stay here. Horseback riding through the wetland areas, jeep safari with a hike, night hike to see nocturnal animals, a boat trip through the wetlands, and maybe the best is wading chest deep into a river with a piece of meat on a hook, hoping to catch a pirhana!!
We are almost the only people here. A couple of other groups were here when we arrived, but now it is just us and maybe 10 others, some who are independent trekkers. Wild peccaries wander the grounds with sheep, horses and numerous birds. We did not see any snakes, although there are 5 varieties of poisonous snakes, along with anacondas and other varieties of snakes.
Although December begins the rainy season here, they have not had much rain, and the normally wet areas are bone dry, with the river running about 12-20 feet below its normal height for this time of year. This was certainly good for us, as there were virtually no mosquitoes where there would be swarms of the little pests during a normal year. However, the locals would really like the rains to start.
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