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Final country, final week it's all very sad.
But our efforts to squeeze lots into our last few weeks have been well rewarded. A month or so ago we met a couple of people in Bolivia who recommended an area of Brazil for a safari and animal hunting, sorry, spotting. We'd previously never heard of 'The Pantanal' and when we left the UK months ago it was never on our agenda. But flexibility is key so we headed off to explore, booking ourselves onto a three day safari.
The Pantanal is a wetland in the south west of Brazil, and in the dry season (now) the animals and birds of the region cluster around waterholes and rivers - an animal spotter's paradise we are told.
Day one involved a hike, a horse ride and a jeep safari. As we left our camp our guide pointed our parrots, macaws and a couple of toucans. The adrenaline was pumping we were going to see loads of crazy creatures, then Pete spotted something on the road up ahead 'Quick what's that' he called out in excitement as the goat stared back. Oh how embarrassing.
Later we saw loads of caimans (a crocodile type), lots of capybaras (the world's largest rodent - tick - think giant guinea pig), and some wild otters. This was great. In the trees above our heads we had glimpses of howler monkeys and numerous birds. Our David Attenbourgh like instincts were bang on as we identified toucans, storks, jabirus, parrots and lots of little brown birds - excellent. All you twitchers out there (Jill, Roy, Iain, Tim) would of absolutely loved it.
On the way back to camp the sun was setting over some of the most beautiful scenery of our whole trip, and the animals were active. Suddenly our truck screeched to a halt, our guide's phenomenal eyesight had seen something 500 meters away. We jumped out and stalked up on the creature, approaching from downwind to avoid detection. Before we knew it we were a couple of meters away from a massive anteater. Even though (as the name implies) they are harmless creatures this was pretty impressive stuff.
Back on the jeep all eyes were pealed. When Pete called out again 'What's that on the road ahead'. Groans were tangible as heads turned expecting a goat. But as they did the 'goat' stood up and prowled off into the vegetation ... it was only a flipping Puma - amazing.
Later we did a couple of boat trips down river, and fished for piranhas - which are surprisingly easy to catch but when cooked result in minimal meat. We saw lots more creatures but were still missing the big one, the one the area is famous for. The illusive jaguar.
By our third night we'd done all the activities our safari package allowed, and alas no jaguars. Polly though was not beat, and set about charming the lodge manager and guide to allow us to take another night boat safari. Polly is very persuasive and soon we were on the boat zipping down the river, our guide's torch beam scanning the banks. And then there it was, a big cat, shoulders arching, spots clear to see, prowling along the river bank. Utterly amazing. Our guide then came into his element. The boat was manoeuvred alongside the bank and the torch was turned off so as not to scare the creature. Turning the light back on, we were much closer and could see not one but two cats - a mother and junior. Just 3 meters away. Fantastic.
We watched them for a good fifteen minutes. Our guide turning off the torch whenever it looked like them might spook. What this meant was that we had moments of pitch darkness when we knew we were very close to 2 big cats but couldn't see a thing, talk about terrifying, we could picture the newspaper headlines. Eventually the cats stalked off and, awed by the cats, we were left to ponder - how much does an African safari cost?
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