After arriving back in Cuiaba from our bus trip back from Chapada we then headed in the direction of the airport to find and rent a car. We managed to find a local bus to take us. Once arriving outside our first place we went inside to find not a single person understood Spanish so Jane couldn't converse with them but have no fear as Google Translate came to our aid, we were able to set ourselves up as customers and rent a car and negotiate the locals rate instead of the tourist rate which suited our budget very well. After acquiring our car a VW Gol (not a golf nor polo but somewhere in-between and made in Brazil) we were on our way using a terribly drawn local map that had few streets on it at all (it's something that we keep encountering - they just put the major roads on the map, so you don't know if you need the next street or in 6 blocks). We managed by few directions and pure luck to miss our turn and figured that out once we hit dirt roads - turn back and find our way to the road to the "Transpantanal".

This road was started some time in the 60's and was meant to connect all the way through but after about 1/4 of it was built the local government stopped the works as the road ended up under water for 6 months of the year! It cuts through the biggest wetland in the southern hemisphere. Maintenance costs would be too high on the continuing piece this is brilliant from an ecological point of view as the complete road would of destroyed much of the Pantanal, where as the piece of road that was built actually enhances it by the large ditches created either side of the road causing massive puddles which enables wildlife to travel large distances in the dry season. This was also somewhat of a godsend for us as it was so dry in parts no life could be supported but for the roadside we could see any number of animals co-habitating the areas.

After many a stop along the transpantanal to look at the wildlife we came across several Posuda's (Large houses like B&Bs that have private bathrooms, AC, beds, and in the Pantanals case includes the meals) most were extremely expensive approx US$75 - $150 per night per person, so not a backpackers budget even though we knew it would be expensive. After going to several we came across one that was inflated from what we had read (old reviews and comments on travel web sites) but not to the excesses that we mention above. They were reasonable from the outset and we ended up paying about US$120 per night for the both of us at UeSo Pantanal and what was best is it included Meals and Activities. Once unpacked we enjoyed the pool prior to dinner, dinner was an amazing spread of food enough to feed us and the family working the pousoda / farm, however we dined alone.

The following day we got up early to start the day and the platter of food was as
large as the dinner from the previous night. We ate our fill and got ready for our horse ride through the property. On our trip we saw monkeys, birds, capivaras (the world's largest rodent), caimen, an armadillo, horses, and cattle. Jane was on a horse we nicknamed Plod, as it was as slow as an old mule and about as stubborn as well. Karl's horse startled twice, the second time he bucked a little as well but Karl had a tight handle on the reigns and managed to settle him right down again without causing the other horses into a bolt.

The ride showed us how tinder dry everything is at the end of the dry season - rains are meant to start in October. It looks like the whole area would burn to a crisp in a matter of minutes! There's heaps of interesting trees and the large number if birds means a large number of nests too. There's a bird here called the Tuiui (too-ee-ooo-eee) that is about the size of a jaibaru but can fly - they make their massive nests up in trees - the are about 3m across and smaller birds make their nests underneath, taking advantage of the materials the Tuiui has collected.

After we got back the heat of the day was upon us, we had a fantastic pool area all to ourselves and not wanting to miss the opportunity we hurried to the unheated pool where we stayed until lunch. By now you would think we might be getting used to the size of the meals being served but there was just so much food for just two people, we also met the owners prior to them leaving, a lovely Swiss couple.

Our afternoon was spent mainly at the pool or inside in the AC reading and relaxing until 4:30 when we went on a walk, we didn't see much except ant and termite nests either made of the bark of the tree they were attached to or out of mud respectfully. We were lead by our guide Marco to a lookout tower that overlooked many a tree and a lake in the distance. After spending some time up on the lookout we then travelled to the lake where Marco and Karl coaxed the caimen (small gator) into the water so that we could get past them to look at the varied amount of birds that we had seen from up high, there was the massive Tuiui bird that would stand as tall as Karls shoulders that was fascinating.

After watching the sunset start - where the sky lights up deep red even without a cloud in the sky - we started heading back to be interrupted by a large colony of Coatis daring to drink from the water so layden with caimen and also climb surrounding trees full of either fruits or nuts.

Our last day in the Pantanal was spent in a boat after breakfast where we saw birds mainly in the early morning, after going up river for quite some time we anchored using the reeds as our anchor and got the fishing rods (bamboo sticks) out to fish. After attaching red meat to each of our fishing rods Marco handed us our rods, he was first to catch a fish followed by Jane then Karl after a while there were quite a few fish fluttering around in the bucket. Be aware that these were no ordinary fish, these were piranha and they were ravenous, within a few seconds of our freshly cut meat entering the water would we have a bite and no matter how much he tried Karl could not even come close to Janes capture rate. In the end the numbers were 11 Marco, 6 Jane, 2 Karl. Jane did fantastically considering it was her first time fishing.

On our way back down the river to where we started we came across a group of river otters, they are huge things quite slender however about 1 to 1.5meters long head to tail and the made all sorts of squeals and squeaks as they were playing in the water around our boat. We got back to the pousada with enough time to have a swim prior to packing our stuff up before lunch was served. For lunch the main item of interest was the piranha that we had caught in the morning, although quite seasoned the flesh to Karl tasted somehow like chicken and being so small took some work to actually scour the flesh off the fishs bones. Which also made some other discovery unlike most other fish the ribs appear below the main spine of the fish making the flesh above the ribs along the spine quite easy to pick off, over the ribs was another story.

After saying goodbye and thanks to everyone that we could find we left our pousada and headed further down the transpantanal to see what we could. We ended up over the river crossing about 30km down from where we were staying where there was a hotel, we stopped for a drink and to see the river a bit more. There was a raft where the people staying at the hotel were fishing and some were teasing the caimen with their catch, and looking shocked when a caimen actually took a piranha from them! Or feeding them to a huge Tuiui, standing on top of the shade cover watching the scene - he would crush their skulls before swallowing, a local said that if they didn't crush their skulls the piranha would chew inside the birds throat (a presumably painful way to die). We left back for Cuiaba for our flight back to Sao Paulo the following day.

In all, we managed to see: otters, caimen, hundreds of birds, armadillo, coatis, capivara, pirana and many more insects and plants. Probably it is not as pretty as it is in the wet season, but this is when we are here, so we are happy that we got the opportunity to see the all :)