I fell in love....

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... with the Pantanal in Brazil!!!!! The world´s largest wetland (150,000 km², extending to Paraguay and Bolivia, fed by the River Paraguay, with AMAZING wildlife!!) I didn´t want to leave!!

The Mexican I met on the bus from Argentina and I, after being surrounded by many different tour companies offering very similar deals, decided to go with GreenTrack - see their great website www.greentrack.com.br (our tour guide, Murilo, is on the top right!!!!) - as it seemed less touristy than others and Murilo, our guide, with 18 yrs experience, offered to drive us there (normally you must take the bus) with his gorgeous little daughter, Maria (I need to speak Portuese!!!)...

So we slept in hammocks (my first time! I loved it!) under roofs made from palm trees and protected by mosquito nets (ahhhhh the mosquitos!!!)... Murilo made EVERYTHING - showers, canoes and paddles, sleeping quarters... Our days began with the roosters hailing the sunrise, and consisted of canoeing down a tributary of the Paraguay River, horseriding (sometimes upto our thighs in water!!! And he let us take the horses to canter freely along the flats - I have never cantered so much... it was wonderfull!!), and walking through the Pantanal to explore the wildlife and plants.

We saw SO much wildlife. Murilo was amazing -he could sniff out a wild pig, hear a puma call, spot a caiman´s (type of crocodile) eyes in the night (he directed the canoe right up to one and I got a fright when it jumped back into the water!)... I also saw an anaconda (HUGE!!), all sorts of birds (including Kingfishers, toucans, herons, macaws - a giant blue and yellow parrot, herons - the region´s trademark, among others) deer, wild boars (Murilo caught one with the help of his trusty dog!), fireants, capybaras (the world´s largest rodent), and howling monkeys!

Murilo also showed us the soap tree (I used it´s fruit to wash like soap!), a plant similar to aloe vera whose fibres are as strong as rope and can be used for many things), a tree used for inducing sterility, it´s trunk hollow for making canoes, a tree which stands alone as the glucose it produces makes it the home to millions of fireants which come out if you break off a leaf, a black mahogany tree which weighs about 2 tonnes for every m² (??), and a vine which seeps water when cut that you can drink from.

Murilo was always in shorts and a t-shirt with no repellant, despite the ever bloodthirsty mosquitos, always with his trusty big knife, and often in bare feet, while I was in long sleeves and trousers, and boots!! He was an amazing mix of origin - Jewish/German, Indigenous Indian, African and Italian grandparents!!

The cook cooked for us everyday - mainly rice, beans, meat, salad (cucumber tomato and potato) and fruit. Fruit was abundant with Guava, a type of plum, and custard apple trees growing all around. There were also cows and chickens wandering right outside where we slept and ate! The last morning, the ´cowboys´ killed and skinned a cow, which we ate for lunch, and they stored the rest to take with them on a 30 day horseride to collect more cows the Murilo was buying to fatten up and sell. I SOOOOO wanted to join them!!

So, my heart was torn whether to stay or whether to leave! I stayed 5 days (I was only going to stay 4!), but my friend was waiting in Belo Horizonte, and she was leaving on Sunday to go to Australia! There was another Australian girl there married to one of the other guides... she had been there 3 yrs and was dying to go to town after 1 month away from civilization... I could have been another :-O (German´s words ringing in my ears - you must finish where you started your trip! Don´t stop on the way!)... Ahhh...

But I want so much to go back...

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Comments

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oi
How could I ever belive that some one write so highly about me. Thank you sooo much Murilo