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well we've had a very eventful few days!
It started back in Puerto Iguazu, when the company we had booked our bus tickets with screwed up - we went to colect our tickets from the office and the guy there said that we hadn't even been booked on the bus, and that the bus was full! hmm, there were also a group of French people there who had also been screwed up cos they had been booked on a bus on the wrong day! We waited around and finally they suggested that if we could leave there and then they would send a driver to take us to the hotel, pick up our bags, then drive us over the boarder to Foz, where we could get the 3pm bus which had 2 seats left! As this appeared to be the best option, we took it!
After a slightly hectic couple of hrs, we got the bus to Campo Grande - big shock - worst bus we?ve had since Bolivia! God, it was stopping and starting, no leg room, stinky loo, and 18hrs to boot! Way overpriced too, rubbish - we have been spoilt by the beautiful buses in Argentina and Chile! In our state of weariness we befriended a dutch couple - Wim and Veronique, who we stuck with for our whole time in the Pantanal - really nice couple.
We arrived at Campo Grande and found a company called Pantanal Discovery, who had been recommended. We paid up and to our delight, they escorted us to a nearby hotel to have a big breakfast and a shower - much needed after our long journey! Then they helped us by bus tickets for our journies away from Campo Grande (post tour) and duely put us all on a local bus to the heart of the Pantanal! 5 and a half hrs later, we were met by Hugo one of our guides, and a battered pick up truck - we then travelled a further hour and a half to reach the farm - our home for the next 3 nights.
Accomodations were basic - we were all in a dorm room with a cold river water shower, but it added to the authenticity of the trip! We had a big dinner and retired to bed, travel weary and in need of sleep. However, sleep we did not! We spent most off the night rigid with fear due to unexplained scratchings and rustlings above our heads - particularly as we had just been reading about people getting bitten by rabid vampire bats! eek!
Anyhoo, we awoke at 6.30am next day (as we did every day), had brekkie and watched the resident flock of blue and yellow macaws flying around, then went for a walk with our guide Sandro. It was a little un-nerving walking through the bush and wading through swamp land in bare feet, but worth it! On our first trek we saw Black Howler monkeies, loads of cayman, coaties, and to top it off we saw a giant anteater! Cool! However, in our attempts to keep the anteater in sight, we managed to temporarily lose a member of our group for half an hour or so! oops! Lunchtime saw us feeding the farms resident cayman, who comes out of the swamp everyday to be fed! Crazy!
That night, Sandro was collecting wood for the fire, and had just heaved a branch on his shoulder when he screamed and ran off - there was a deadly poisonous snake wrapped round the branch, within striking distance of Sandro's face! eek! Needless to say he shat himself! We all went to have a look at this snake, but reatreated a considerable distance when we were told it can kill a horse in 20 minutes and makes you vomit blood - the owner of the farm said once the horse he was riding got bitten on the nose and suffered the effects - it was a grey horse, but he said it was red by the time it died - nice. Needless to say they killed the snake - it was really pissed off and kept darting all over the place - and it is now pickling in a jar! The excitement of the nights events wore us out and we slept like logs, despite more rustling!
The morning brought a jeep safari - well, a battered pick up truck safari! We saw toucans, cayman, capibaras, kingfishers, wild pigs, jabiru storks (HUGE), iguanas, giant otters and AN ANACONDA! It was sooo cool to see such a massive snake - we touched it and everything! What was more amazing was the guides ability to track the thing in the first place - he noticed a snake track across the road (which we would never have seen) deduced that these snakes move slowly and headed off bout 30 meters in to the bush and there it was! Crazy! The ride was lots of fun - but we had sore backs afterwards! The trip was made even more interesting by the fact that one of the trucks wheels nearly fell off!
In the afternoon we went Pirahna fishing! We took a boat (with a hole in it!) down the river on a very hot afternoon, some of the party went swimming with the resident wildlife - sophie did not! We managed to catch 5 pirahnas between us (soph 1, andrew 4) and in total the group caught 25 pirahnas!!!! Admittedly, our guides caught the majority of these! During our fishing expedition we were befriended by a cayman, who was literally next to our boat - we fed him pirahnas off a bamboo cane - scary, but cool! We too had a feast of pirahnas that night - which were quite tasty! The day was topped off by us sitting round the camp fire idly chatting away, when a bright green light shot across the sky! - we assume it was some form of space debris - the guides said they saw similar things most nights! It was quite a sight anyway!
Last morning, and we were meant to be going horse riding. We were a little apprehensive as the horses look really skinny, but it turned out that we didn?t go at all; Hugo had been out for 3hrs looking for the horses and we were getting abit worried - what with poisonous snakes around. However, it turned out that he just couldn?t find the horses - they appeared to have jumped the fence! Ah well. We were then driven back to the main road, along with the dutch couple, in order to catch the bus back to Campo Grande, then on to Sao Paulo. We were slighly concerned that there would be no space on the bus to Campo Grande, as it was a holiday in Brasil, but the company pulled through and managed to secure us seats - thank god!
Unfortunately we have a few more mosquito bites, but god its good to back in the heat!!!!
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