Hi all,

Well half way through our dragonman trek and the next stop is the tropical wetlands of Pantanal, slap bang in the middle of South America. Bring lots of mosquito repellant we were told, well its only for 3 days, I´m sure a small bottle will suffice....... Any how our truck arrived in the hot sun of the wetlands but as it was in the middle of dry season the wetlands were not so wet, but it´s such a stunning place, quite flat but very green and luch with lots of rivers. We had 3 days here with plenty to do. First was safari day, one in the day then a night one after dinner. Dinner and all the food here is excellant, the best we have had in Brazil, as the place we are staying at is a self sufficiant farm, all of the food is fresh and that includes organic beef! All you can eat buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner, lucky I don´t put on weight very easily. Rice, bean stew, fresh salad, baked veg and fresh roasted pork and beef, delicious!

The safari took place for 2-3 hours in a converted truck with open air seats at the back so everybody on board got a good view. The route took us along dirt tracks along the side of rivers and farmland. We saw plenty of capybaras (the worlds largest rodent), many differnt species of birds form herons to hawks, parrots to vulchers. Most scary were the caymen, small crocodiles... you certainly would not want to go swimming with them. The one animal which got Bex most excited about though was the gaint anteater, after seeing one in a zoo a couple years ago it had quickly become a favorite animal so to see one in wild was great news for Bex. Bex also managed to tick anoither box on her list, which was to milk a cow! Never seen her so excited about getting up at 5 in the morning. I trudged along behind but i'm glad I did as it was quite fun. All the cows on the farm are still milked by hand and we were shown how by a very experinced cowboy, who seemed to be amused by our fasination at this morning chore. We also got to milk a buffalo as well! I was flagging at this point so went back to bed, but Bex and couple of others from the tour took the milk to the kitchen to make fresh cheese, which was served later that day at lunch!

The night safari topped the day one though, going on a similar route as before but with longer waits to see animals we saw another giant anteater but with a baby on its back, which is pretty rare as they only give birth every 3 years. The animal we were most hopeful of seeing was the Jaguar, very rare to see one and we weren´t so lucky, we did get to see two ¨little jaguars¨ or Ocelots though which were beautiful. We also caught a view of foxes and raccoons, a good tour.

The next day, after a hearty breakfast was a canoe trip, in hot weather on the water we were about to get a real taste of mosquitos. The previous day we had got away with a couple of bites, but now it felt like we were under attack. Me and Bex shared with Nicole on our tour, and the canoe felt pretty unstable, after a few bickers of trying to work together to get the thing going straight we soon got the hang of it and were working together well to build speed up in order to plough through the dence patches of water plants. Later in the day we had a horse trek thought some of land which is normally flooded in the wet season, but not before we cooled our bites down in the pool.

The horse trek was great, I´m getting more confident on a horse and felt comfortable straight away. We trekked for a couple of hours but the best part about it was the stunning sunset, the most beautiful I´ve ever seen. It just looked bigger, the picture won´t do it justice but hopefully you can get an idea. My bay mare called maize, was very well behaved, but liked to be at the front of the group so I was always up with leader. Just as we got back some cowboys were hearding some cows to a different field, impresive to watch but I think the girls were more impressed with the cowboys themselves.

Later they all turned into teenage girls again as we were all invited to a BBQ with bonfire and cowboy dancing. Great night, good atmosphere and amazing food, I even tried BBQ´d cow heart which was very tasty. But this was the night I got eaten alive by mozis! This continued next day as we returned to the river to go pirahna fishing! Armed with just a bamboo stick, fishing line and meat we all hung of the edge of the boat and waited for a bite. I could not keep still though as I was either swatting mozis away or scratching my bites. Thus this resulted in me not catching anything, Bex did though and was proud if not a little scared by it! On the way back we used some of the caught fish to feed some caymen, they seemed much bigger up close! We also saw some birds diving for the fish, the kingfisher was best and I just managed to get the photo burst on camera which resulted in a cracking shot.

So after having eaten a lot and been eaten a lot we now had a mammouth 22 hour drive ahead of us. Ok, ipod charged, new book ready, lets go! Many card games and uncomfortable sleeps later we arrived in Paraty. A small town between Sao paulo and Rio. This town would be great in the sun, next to the beach, loads of lush green islands, but the weather is crap. It has not stopped raining since we arrived, which limits the activities in this town. So we have got pretty wet and lounged in the hostel bar for a couple days, just waiting for the promised sun in Rio, our final stop of the whole tour.

Chris