The pantanal day 2

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Day 2 in the Pantanal 27.10.2011

Up early for the mornings activity - Horse riding. Again like the S.American style they got the horses ready, put a builders hat on us, showed us how to get on, how to direct the horse left, right, and stop and we were off!!! Most of the group had never even sat on a horse!!! No health and safety ha, and no plan of what we would be doing!! So off we went one by one through the Pantanal, spotting wildlife (no jaguar to be seen) most of it shrubs from where the lakes had dried up, then though woodlands where Alex the cowboy got his knife out and started making a path for us, after the thorns, scratches, bits of tree hitting us in the face we then started to make our way to a large bit of water. The leader was heading straight for it! Yep sure enough we were taking the horses through it, bare in mind these lakes are full of anaconda, leeches and caiman (crocodiles) me and michael were crapping ourselves!!! the horrible bog water came up the the bottom of the horses saddles, barely keeping our feet dry. We werent told that caiman dont attack horses úntil after we had been through, so it wasnt an enjoyable experience. Thought I was going to get eaten, and what if we fell off??!!! Not to mention the horses were misbehaving eating everything in sight, and starting to gallop when the horses in front did. Anyway, overall we actually really enjoyed it!

Later that afternoon we went Piranha fishing. We were all given bamboo sticks with a hook at the end, and a raw bit of meat. Next minute Alex the leader told us to follow him, bare foot we walked to the edge of the lake, and he didn´t stop, so we all followed though the disgusting sludge/mud (suprisingly very hot) into a piranha infested lake!!! With no time to actually think of what we were doing we were thigh deep in water, in a lake with piranha, leeches, caiman and anaconda! and all I could think was I dont think our insurance coved fishing for piranha actually stood in the lake!! Michael was fine as awlays while I was petrified, shaking and beginning to get upset i managed to catch two but dropped them, and thenI went and got BITTEN by one!!! I felt piranha teeth latch onto my shin! well that was that I screamed and got hysterical until michael took me out! No-one actually believed I got bitten until they saw the bite mark on my leg at the end. I dont think it happens very often? well I dont actually know, we wernt told anything! I was standing as still as I could so they wouldnt notice me standing there as I kept feeling them brush past my legs, but apparently your meant to keep moving! Would have been helpful to know that before we went in! Anyway, Michael loved it, he caught 4 good ones!! So michael caught 4 and I got bitten! Typical. Overall the group caught about 14, we took them back to the ranch and ate them for tea 😊 Got my own back 😉

That night we went on a night Safari, good fun and scary, all the workers on the ranch came with us too (which was a bit unnerving as what were they expecting? ha) Overall a really good day which we both enjoyed, all that was left was to try and sleep in those hammocks with all the bugs making loud noises!

Day 3 Pantanal 28.10.2011

Bad night sleep as what I thought was a giant moth flying roung the room attacking people was acutally a bat, which was later joined by two more! Great we had frogs, lizards, mosquitoes, bugs and bats sleeping with us!! Anyway up early, half 5 for sunrise and early morning sarafi. More animals, bugs and insects!!!
Our tour guide made us all souveniers, bracelets and a neclace for me 😉 out of cactus fibre and some fruit seeds as beads, oh and out of coco nuts (small ones which the parrots eat) was quite good, an we are all still wearing them now (now being the 30.10.2011).

We then got a minibus to the bolivian border where we crossed and entered Bolivia.

S. x

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