Week 3 - Bonito and the Pantanal

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So after finishing up on Brazil´s sunny coastline, we took three buses (over a period of 31 hours) to a place in the south of the country called Bonito. The plan was to stay two days in Bonito and then spend four days in the Pantanal (a large wetland area on the border of Bolivia, the size of France).

The first day in Bonito was all about recovery. The second involved heading out to the Rio da Prata to spend the day snorkling down the river, checking out the wildlife of the area. As you would expect we saw a lot of fish. The big fish (30cm to 1m), most of the time, kept their distance, however the small fish (<5cm) were quite happy to come up to you and have a taste. Tracy found this particulary scary, and on a number of occasions we were in danger of scaring most of the wildlife in the area away. Nevertheless we had a great day floating down the crystal clear river and saw otters, monkeys, snakes, caymen (small alligators) and loads of fish.

The next day we headed to the Pantanal in a bus that was completely unsuitible for the road conditions. In many places the road was a mud track and it had been rainibng for moat of the morning. This turned the bus into a rally car, and we had to be pulled out of the mud on a few occasions. We were dropped off by the side of the road 6 hours later to be picked up by an off road truck and taken deep into the Pantanal to a place called Santa Clara. Here we spent four days and three nights treking around on boats, horses, and jeeps, during the day and the night. We saw a lot of wildlife, some of which we just about managed to photo- see below. We also saw an Ocelot (a small jaguar) but it was too quick to photo. Tracy also managed to catch a Paranha- by leaving her rod unattended- whilst I caught nothing! Hey ho.

After leaving yesterday, and travelling by Tractor, Truck, Barge, Jeep, Coach, Coach again and Bus, (a 24 hour journey in all) we are now in Foz do Iguacu. The next couple of days are all about a big waterfall, and crossing into Argentina (Don´t mention the war).

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Photos

Tucan
Tracy injured herself in the truck trying to get this photo!!!

Capybara
The worlds biggest rat!

Caymen
Scary! We swam in the river with them!!

My fish!!
Wasnt even trying - left my rod to get myself a chair to sit on and came back and the fish had hooked itself!!

Comments

[katie]

Caymen
They are not small.