I procrastinated long enough about writing about the Pantanal.
It was really a great experience. We flew into Cuiaba and were met with by our guide, Vincente. A super-nice, and a little bit goofy guide, who then took us on long drive to the lodge where we were staying. Along the way we saw giant river otters, crab eating foxes, millions of caymans and all sorts of birds — everything from Hyacinth macaws to kingfishers to jaibaru storks. The giant otters were very cool, being very giant and very rare.
We arrived at Pousada Onca, and then got up at 3:30 in the morning for a night saffari. But we didn’t see anything more than a fox, probably the animals were sleeping.
Then after finishing sleeping we went to Porto Jofre where we took a couple of long boat rides looking for jaguars. We saw a lot of birds and had a really good fish lunch, but no-dice on the jaguars. After that we had dinner and another night safari where we saw a deer. From that point on we did a bunch of hikes, and Vincente said he saw an onca, but nobody else did. I did have a really serious allergy problem when he said he saw it, so perhaps I’m allergic to jaguars. We were almost attacked by a deer, which was very strange. It was being chased by something and almost ran into us on a dirt road. It must have thought that were less dangerous than the animal chasing it, but it was almost close enough to touch.
One of the big highlights of the trip for me was a visit to an abandoned research station, where they had all sorts of animals in jars that they had left behind. Very creepy and very cool!
Pantanal is a mecca for bird watchers, who are an interesting, if eclectic bunch. They travel with spreadsheets and lots of equipment hoping to see all manner of birds.
From the Pantanal we went to Chapada de Guimaraes, which is a city in the mountains outside of Cuiaba (Cuiaba being the world’s most boring city). It was really nice and we did a couple of really cool hikes and went swimming in a waterfall.
Some pictures are below.
