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I love wilderness.....!
After the Iguassu Falls, we headed over to the Brazilian side and then took a 14 hour bus journey to Campo Grande. Then a 5 hour minibus journey with a crazy driver and finally an hour´s bumpy jeep ride into the Pantanal, arriving at the camp on Sunday afternoon. We met up with the others who were to be in our group - Rob and David, 2 quiet physios from Bristol, and John and Kohren from London who were lovely boys and kept us laughing the whole time! Our guide was the lovely Gabriel, born and brought up in the Pantanal, the perfect guide.
The camp was fairly small with only a maximum of one or two other groups there at different stages of their tour. Everyone slept in a big hut in hammocks, not the most comfortable things to sleep in! But the bar (another hut!) was open with tasty caprinhias and beers to help us sleep! Breakfast was at 6am every morning and tours left at 7am so we all wanted a reasonable amount of sleep! With the electricty going off at 11pm, bedtime was fairly early!
The first morning started with a thunderstorm so although we took a boat ride and went for a walk through the brush, we saw little wildlife because of the weather. We did see parrots, toucans and Howler monkeys and capybaras (oversized guinea pigs) though.
Our second day was awesome. It was a beautiful day and we headed off in the jeep for a bit of Piranha fishing. We walked along the river watching the alligators (yes there are that many in the picture!) and found a good spot. With cow heart for bait, I did pretty well, catching about 4 or 5 good sized piranhas and a few tiddlers which we threw back. I did also nearly get attacked by an alligator, all most exciting and I think even Gabriel got a shock when it launched out of the water at me! Now that would have been a good story eh! We caught a good number between us for lunch and while Gabriel was cleaning them off in the water, I thought that i could possibly handle this life so proposed to the lovely Gabriel. Unfortunately he turned me down gently by saying he was too young for marriage (he´s 28!). Ah well! We then got out of the hot sun at another remote camp where we had a couple of hours to chill before lunch was ready. John and I went for a wander but mad dogs and englishmen and all that meant that we only saw some parrots and a couple of monkeys. Back at the camp, I helped Gabriel batter the fish and it was all very tasty! Then straight off horse riding. I was on a lovely grey boy who was a bit slow to start with but soon got going! I haven´t ridden for 6 years so think I got on pretty well with some good cantering in there too! Gabriel managed to find and catch an armadillo which was interesting to see. Back at the camp we jumped back into the jeep and to a tiny isolated shop for a beer while we waited for darkness. Then home with Gabriel on the front with a huge torch trying to spot more wildlife. More alligators, foxes, capybaras and flamingoes. No jaguars unfortunately! Then back to the main camp for food and some beers.
A new group with some irish had arrived so played poker with matchsticks for a while but everyone was tired. Only 4 of us left at 11pm but we couldn´t continue with the poker as an enormous tropical storm came over. I´ve never seen anything like it. The whole place lit up, torrential rain, high winds and tremendous thunderclaps. It went on for a long time and there was no chance of sleep so we just moved our bags to dry spots and watched it all. As it started to die down, the irish boys started with their snoring symphony unfortunately so not much sleep!
Today there was no rain but it was still wet so for our walk around, Gabriel showed us some bushcraft. He´s so hardcore, he never wears shoes and can survive in the pantanal for several weeks with only his machete with him! What a man! Then just reading and packing before the hour´s jeep ride back to the junction where us girls and the physios said goodbye to the boys and took the hour long bus ride to Carumba. Here we are now at the Bolivian border which we will be crossing tomorrow, taking the train to Santa Cruz where i´ll probably split with the girls for the salt lake tours.
A great few days, i´m glad I stuck with the girls. They may not be natural travelling companions for me but I wouldn´t have known about the Pantanal without them! I have to say, I loved roughing it and having muddy feet, wearing no shoes etc even though i´m aching all over from riding and sleeping in a hammock and all my clothes need washing!
Too late and too tired to post photos now - will do tomorrow before the train. xx
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