Parrots, Pirahnas and Caimen

As per usual the amount I am going to try and fit into this blog is huge but I will do my best not to waffle and keep it entertaining!

I left off in in Parati (or Paratay) where we had enjoyed some great weather and some beautiful scenery! We set off from here on a 3 day drive to the Pantanal Wetlands via two bush camps by the road! The bush camps were interesting, where we basically camped by the main highway at service stations, I was abole to make good use of my ear plugs that had previously dimmed the dulcet topnes of my tent buddy Pete´s snoring, at least there were showers! The schedule, as it continues to do so, provided us with some amazing views of sun rises and sun sets!

We eventually made it to the Pantanal, via a stop to see some huge 2m+ Caiman, and our bus driver Eddie took great pleasure out of giving one of them a kick in the tail! We were staying in an amazing location, on a small land island in the middle of a wetland area, where we were greeted upong arrival by a pair of Hyacinth Macaws, amazing!! We headed straight out on a bush walk to see the birds and were carefully led by our guide Joao through the wetland area and waded through swamp with Caiman and Pirahnas in!

A chilled out evening around the fire was made more exciting by what we thought was the sound of a Jaguar, who knows!! The next day we rose early to go horse riding through the bush to see more of the wildlife. We saw a pair of Macaws nesting in the tree and i took a couple of special snaps of the fliying off! The horses were less than pleased to head through the Caiman infested water and Joao kindly told us that one had been bitten yesterday, great! We got to canter on the horses back into the farm stay which was fantastic, a great experience having only ever walked on a horse! Peters horse put up a refusal at canterring and nearly bucked him off, credit to him that he stayed on!!

In the affternoon we headed for another bush walk, however the main objective was Pirahna fishing! Nat our tucan guide put a beer on the first person to catch one, so after a quick demo i was keen to be first! No sooner had i cast the bait that I felt a tug and flicked a decent size pirahna onto the bank. The blighter didnt get hooked and managed to get away and Mel took the first real catch hauling her prize from the top of the tree she had flicked it into!!! We managed to catch a few each, much better than the other groups that had been there and we did so while being harassed by a large Caiman that seemed more interested in our bait than our toes!! We also had two territorial giant otters that kept advancing and grunting because we were stealing their fish!! We were hugely lucky with this experience and it will definitley be up their with one of the main high-lights of my trip!

After a cool down game of football and another evening by the camp fire we headed to a fishing lodge nearbvy for a night of comfort as the last two had been in hammocks! We did a quick river tour seeing more caiman, howler monkeys, caipybara and some huge iguanas before returning for another spot of pirahna fishing. We were soon defeated by the mosquitos however and retured early to bed after dinner to a nice air conditoned room!

Our journey from the Pantanal was lengthy and we arrived into Bonito tired and not accustomed to the new cold weather (to date we had had nothing but sunshine and warmth!) We quickly booked onto the Abismo experience for the next day and headed off for a quick trianing session before dinner. After another night on the ubiquitous terrible south american pool table we retired to bed for an early start the next day!

Our morning taxi ride was interesting as we had to get out for every speed bump on steep incline beacuse the taxi scraped the ground we arrived at the Abismo Cave. We were about to decend an 80m rope ont and enormous cavern. We did so in pairs which was a lot of fun and more technical than it sounds matching each others speed! Once in the bottom spent an hour paddling about in a dinghy and snorkling around. The water was incredible with 40m visibility, and Rowan did a scuba dive and hes PADI qualified n all that!

The route out was a different kettle of fish having to rappell in pairs up a very springy rope 1m apart from each other. Rowan and I made it in 14 mins with the only major events being the guy following us tightening our back straps half way, a few out of control spins and rowan getting kicked in the head by me. Peter and Dane made it in 26 with a large stop to untangle their joining safety rope which was between danes legs, and the girls did well, Mel making it well over half way before throwing in the towell and Pilippa making it in a valliant 30 mins! This was a pretty physical challenge and lots of people get refused so we should all be proud ;-) In the afternoon me Rowan and Dane cycled 8kms to a public swimming area by a river whihc was perfectly clear with huge trout in it! it was freezing so we took a quick dip and cycled back!!

After a chilled out if a little boring day in Bonito the next day me Dane and Peter headed out for a few beers and found a bar where you could write over the walls, so anyone who goes there in the future, you have to try and work out the bits I wrote!!!

After Bonito we headed to Foz Do Iguacu for the falls!! As you know i have been here already i wont talk about them too much, i decided to do the brazilian side again and went to a bird park after, got harassed by Tucans and millions of macaws! good fun all round! We had a pretty fun night out after and returned in the small ours with funny tales and new Brazillian friends, Rowan ;-)

The next day we went to Paraguay! well we hopped over a bridge to a city which name escaped me but for the blogs sake I will call it Market Town! There was heaps, yes boys heaps of market stalls and we headed out on a nmassion to secure cheap tax free black market purchases! We returned with success on most parts with new found bargaining skills and gleaming new purchases! After a hearty tea we headed out go-karting! this was amazing, I have never really done it before and managed to qualify 3rd, which was OK, the race was awesome, formula one eat your heart out, I retained my grid popsition after a terrible opening 5 laps where i must have spun 10 times and dropped to second from last! Eddie our truck ndriver won naturally nailing almost every lap with Rowan in second only a second or two ahead of me on the finish line! it was great and all for about 15 pounds! great fun, I wish we had another day there as I would have been straight back down for more!!

I took a more chilled out approach to Puerto Iguasu, and caught up on some sleep while the others visited the falls. Me and the boys cooked some 500g steaks one night which cost about 2 pound each!! STEAKKKK!!

Since then we have made it to Salta where I am now via a cold bush camp near corrientes!

I hope all of you at home are well! Love to all and congrats to Ash for completing his sea kayak mission in such a good time!! (www.seakayakchallenge.com)

Owly over and out!