Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The end is near now. Just over a week to go and one destination left. We are ending the trip in the place of? all places.........RIO DE JANEIRO. Going out with a bang. Tommorow we are getting an early morning flight to Sao Paulo and will somehow be making our way to Rio from there. Yeah baby.
Just over a week ago we left the amazing Foz de Iguaca waterfalls and headed on a 12 hour bus journey to Campo Grande. Campo Grande has nothing worthy of noting, it was just an overnight stop for us. The day after we headed to Bonito, meaning Beautiful. Luckily this was only a 5 hour journey. Just a tiddler. The hostel we stayed at was very chilled out with hammocks everywhere and even a swimming pool. Me and Tom booked our Pantanal camping trek for the next day. We had to be up by 5.30am
PANTANAL EXPERIENCE
Me and Tom spent 2 nights and 3 days camping in the Southern Pantanal. The Pantanal is the world's largest wetland area. The region, whose name derives from the Portuguese word "p?ano" (meaning "swamp" or "marsh" ), is situated mostly within the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. It is thought to be the world's most dense flora and fauna ecosystem and is teeming with wildlife
Day One
My alarm woke me up at about 5.15am and it was still dark. The bus picked us up at 6.00am and we then had a 5 hour drive to the start of the Pantanal. Here we were picked up by our guides in a big open back truck, for a 40 minute bumpy ride to the campsite. The campsite was better than I imagined it would be. Very spacious with good toilets, mini football goals, dining area and even a camp fire area. We then went into the sleeping huts and discovered we would be sleeping in Hammocks. Quite exciting.......well at first anyway.
We had lunch fairly soon after arriving, and piranha was on the menu. You basciacally get the fish whole, teeth still in place. Very tasty in fact. After a lunch we headed out for our first activity, which was a boat ride down the river. This was a brilliant start. It really felt as if we were in the middle of nowhere just cruising down a river full of piranha. Then the guide handed us some fishing rods (Bamboo sticks with line and hook) and some meat. It wasnt long before I had my first piranha in hand. We also had a Cayman alligator sitting right next to us, eating all our fish. Some of the animals we saw included:
Black Howler Monkeys,Toucans, Blue and Red Macaws (Parrots),Capybara (Water pigs)Caymans, Kingfishers, Vultures, Catfish, Jaguar footprint
We ended the day after dinner with a few beers around the camp fire. Then we hit the hammocks. Suprisingly I had a good nights sleep
Day 2
The bell for breakfast sounded at 6.00am. I headed straight for a strong cup of coffee. An hour later we headed out in the truck for a 3 hour walk in the Pantanal on a wildlife hunt. Here is a list of what we saw
Tiger Heron, Panatanal Stalk (Symbol of Pantanal), More Toucans, Owl, Capybara family, 5 Howler monkeys with babies, Blue Macaws, Red and Blue Macaws, Deer, Eagle, Ocelot footprint, Anaconda tracks
The second half of the day we spent fishing for our dinner. A few piranhas and small catfish were caught but not many. Therefore we would just be having rice., pasta and potatoe for dinner that evening. A few more beers before bedtime and not the best nights sleep tonight. A guy from a different building was snoring and keeping the whole campsite up. It was violent. It kind of sounded like a pig being slaughtered. Now.... we have experienced many different types of snorers in the last 6 months but this Brazilian guy was the winner by a country mile. The worst point was when he set off a French girl next to me. It was all over
Day 3
Another deathly wakeup call at 6.00am. Coffee didnt work this time. However, the 2 hour ride in the back of the truk to the horse riding place did. We spent 2-3 hours riding our horses around the Panatanal. Unfortunately I was given the laziest one there and was usually about 100 metres behind everyone else. But the scenery was brilliant. After the horse riding we went back to camp for lunch and then set of on our 6 hour trip back to Bonito. The Pantanal was definately the best wildlife experience of the trip. Just seeing Toucans and parrots in the wild is amazing. I would have loved to have seen either an anaconda or one of the big cats (Jaguar and Puma) but we just arent that lucky (remember the car fire experience)
Back to Bonito
The last 5 nights have been spent chilling and relaxing in Bonito, mainly to get recouperated for the last week in Rio. Yesterday we went on a bike ride to one of the crystal clear rivers and swam with some fish, but thats about it. Oh, and we ate some Cayman alligators for dinner one of the nights. Kinda tastes like a fishy chicken. Today we travelled back to Campo Grande where we fly from tommorow.
FINAL DESTINATION - RIO
- comments