We have just arrived back after three good, but hot and sweaty days in the Pantanal! We left the hostel in Campo Grande at 11.30am on Sunday morning in a small mini bus that was to be our transportation for the next 4 hours. At about 4pm we arrived at the lodge and we were told that we´d have to wait about 1/2 hour before we would be taken to the camp (we could choose whether we wanted to sleep in a bed at the lodge or in hammocks at the camp-we chose hammocks, we need the practice if we´re gonna be doing it for a week on the Amazon!). 1/2 hour turned into an hour and then into two before anybody came for us, turned out that we had to wait for the others who were staying at the camp to come back from their afternoon activity before we could go. We all piled into a four wheel drive ute which was fun, it was like something you´d do a safari in. The camp must have been a good 30 minutes from the lodge and it was dark by the time we arrived, luckily there was electricty. Camp was really basic, with three huts full of hammocks, a smelly toilet block, a dining area and a wooden shack as a bar with a camp fire. We sat and had a drink with the others before the dinner bell rang so we all piled into the ´dining room´. Dinner was rice and beans-we had been told to expect alot of this! After dinner our guide introduced himself as Levi, he seemed nice, but we were unsure who else would be in our group as the others had been there a day and a half already and had a different guide.

Day 1

Got woken up early by the breakfast bell at about 6am this morning and left camp shortly after to do a walk. There was only myself and Neil and another German girl who had been in the Pantanal for a few days already but we think she had something going with our guide........The walk was really nice although we didn´t really see alot of wildlife, Levi told us alot about the Pantanal, he has lived there all of his life after coming from a tribe when he was just 5 years old.

We arrived back at camp at about 10am, between 10am and 2pm it´s far to hot to do anything so we were left to do as we please, which was mainly complaining about how hot it was and taking cold showers! Later on in the afternoon Levi took us piranah fishing which was great! He took a whole chicken to use as bate and cut it up into small pieces, apparently they like meat! It´s alot harder than it looks but Neil was really good at it and managed to catch four! I was getting annoyed because i could feel the fish biting but i wasn´t yanking hard enough and they were just nicking my bate! Eventually i caught one which i was very proud of, although i had to look away when Levi stuck his big knife in it´s head and then proceded to gut it. He even pulled it´s heart out and it was on the end of his finger, beating. It wasn´t very pleasant! later on we decided to do for a swim in a river near the camp while we were waiting for tea, we had been told it was safe, however we all retreated after one of the German guys was bitten on the toe, Levi said it was a piranah bite but they rarely bite humans, yeah right! I didn´t do anymore swimming in the rivers that they said were supposidly safe! Later on when we were back at camp Levi cooked the piranah for us to try; can´t say i was that impressed!

Day 2

We had to get up ridicuously early this morning-at 5am to do a sunrise walk! Managed to spot a few monkies and a whole dead cow that had apparently died from a snake bite! Oh and we almost saw an anaconda, well, we saw it´s trail through a swamp of mud and Levi thought it would be a good idea for us to follow it so we all trudged in, knee high in mud and follwed the trail. We got to an area of water, all of us covered in mud but expecting it to be worth it, for Levi to turn around and say he didn´t want to take us any further because anaconda´s only go in water when they are looking for food! Levi showed us lots of fauna, one plant had a seed that you could draw henna tatoos with and he also showed us a colony of ants that they use in the tribes for healing wounds, He showed us with his t-shirt and picked up an ant that grabbed hold of his top with two massive pinsers, then he quickly snapped off it´s body and it´s head stayed there. Apparently they act as stiches for cuts!

To be continued-i´ve run out of time x x

Back again!

Whilst we had been walking in the morning, Paulo (Levis Brother and another guide) had been collecting things from the bush to make jewellery. I was really excited about this because i´d seen a few other girls wearing really nice necklaces that he´d made for them and i really wanted one! However, when we got back to camp we sat around for 4 hours and nothing was mentioned about it which was a bit dissapointing! At around 2.30pm we left to go horse riding. When we arrived we had to wait about 1/2 hour while the horses were prepared so Neil and a few German lads thought they´d try and play soccer with the Brazilians. Yeah....they tried!! Once all of the horses were ready we jumped on and set off. The style of riding here is really different to that in England; i suppose you could say we were riding like cowboys and there were no hats either!! Neil really enjoyed it and i was really impressed to say that it was his first time! He was going faster than i was! We were pretty much allowed to go at the pace we wanted to and the horses were really well behaved-they didn´t do anything unless you asked them to.

On the way back to camp it was quite late and getting pretty dark so max grabbed the flashlight and jumped on top of the ute to try and spot some animals, and to our suprise we spotted a Puma! It was quite difficult to see and unfortunately we didn´t manage to get a photo as it was too dark, it didn´t stick around for long either!

Later on that night after tea Neil asked Levi if he could make me a necklace the following day. Levi said that we probably wouldn´t have time but he´d make me one the day after and send it back to Campo Grande so we could pick it up when we returned. I really hope he does but i´m not holding out...

Day 3

For our last morning in the Pantanal we went on a boat ride with another guide Max as our group had been spilt and Levi had gone with the others. (This was the only thing i didn´t like about the trip; instead of sending groups out every third day, they would bring people out everyday and so the groups were never the same as there were always people leaving your group and new people arriving, Levi had gone to do something different with the ´new´people in our group so we were left with Max). The boat trip wasn´t great, mainly because i wasn´t feeling too good and we had to wear these silly life jackets round our necks which were really restricting and forced you to sit forwards and get a stiff neck. It left me wondering why we weren´t made to wear hats the day before while we were horse riding, isn´t that equally as dangerous? Neil had a bit of a swim when we got further downstream, i didn´t dare because of all the camon (small crocs) that we had seen on the way! After the boat ride it was time to leave the Pantanal so we caught a bus and headed south west towards Bonito.