Bonito, big fish and blue water.

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Bonny Bonito, as the Irish might say. You may have already read about our speedhump eperience, so we can skip that bit of overzealous city council piece of work.

In short, Bonito is a bit hard to work out. Either A) they are trying to build up a tourist based economy here, and are using high, and non-negotiable tour prices to build everything up, or B) they´re overcharging so much in an effort to keep too manu tourists away! Had a chat with a guy from Iguazu, and he didn´t understand it either, as everything seems to be overpriced.

Bonito´s claim to fame are very sediment rich rivers, that appear to be a very deep and beautiful blue. And there are lots of them too ! Some of this blue water can also be found in caves. And on top of all that, you have thousands of very tranquil big fish swimming in the rivers, who are quite happy to swim along with them.

After the Pantanal wildlife frenzy, this was also a bit of a break for us, so we didn´t rush around from one thing to another. The hostel was lovely, with a great pool, but it was also 1.5 km out of the centre, so not inviting to walk in too much, even though we did quite a lot in the end.

We joined in on a morning tour of the Gruta de lago Azul (cave of the blue lake), which was quite fascinating and pretty. Of course, our luck, the guide hardly spoke english, and apart from a fellow English backpacker, the rest of the group were (usually quite anoying) Brazilians.

By itself the cave wasn´t very deep. Just one massive hole in a rock, with plenty of stalachmites and -tites, and at the bottom of course the blue lake. Quite hard to put on digital film as well with such limted light, but still very pretty.

The day before we´d finally made it out to the Municipal bath, which is a very cheap alternative to a lot of other tours, and quite a tranquil way to spend an afternoon. And yes, very strange to swim with so many fish right around you. Bin was right, they did appear to be a larger and fatter relative of the Piranha, but that´s all just psychological. The river was nice and cool, which after a 6km ride on an old bicycle with one gear and hardly any brakes was quite refreshing.

And yes, after swimming with the fish, you can kick back in one of the cafes there, and... ehm, eat one of the fish. We enjoyed quite a lovely local fish stew!

Last night (Saturday 11 March) we enjoyed a lovely meal as well in town. Two local specialties, sorry, species: Catfish and jacare (cayman). I quite enjoyed both, think Bin was struggeling a bit with both. But anyway, what better way to enjoy a country, than by eating its animals !

We´re of to Bolivia today. Slight change of plan, of which we´ll report more later!

Ciao for now !

Bin and Rene

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Comments

[Suze]

Fish!
Looks scrumptious compared to Sainsburys Salmon ... enjoy the swims!