We got the night train from Santa Cruz to the Bolivian-Brazilian border. They gave us dinner and showed Big Mamma´s House 2 before we tried to sleep! We were given breakfast when we woke and they showed another film but it was all in Spanish!
We got to border control,
got our passports stamped as we left and then trekked over the border and entered Brazil! After lunch, we drove for 3 hours to the Pantanal. We kept stopping en route as our driver kept pointing out various animals - deer, racoons and eagles. We even saw caimen (a type of aligator) and managed to stand a few feet away for a photo! We were taken for a 2 hour trek through the forest by our guide, Paulo, who cut down anything that stood in our way. We saw lots of monkeys and parrots. It was very humid and the mosquitos keep buzzing around! We drove to our base camp for the next 2 nights - we´ll be sleeping in hammocks!
The next day we got woken by a dawn chorus of birds (we were virtually outdoors except a roof and a mosquito net surrounding us!) Paulo took us for another walk and we saw giant otters , more monkeys, toucans, paraqueets and capivara (water pigs).
Then we stopped at a river and fished for our lunch - piranahs! It took a while to get used to fishing but in the end, Kate & I managed to catch 4 piranahs each and I also caught another fish that was thrown back in! We had to use cow heart as bate! Kate managed to swing one of her piranah´s and it hit me in the back - good thing that it had a hook in its mouth or it might have tried to eat me!
We stopped at a camp in the middle of the
forest for lunch. We rested on hammocks while the piranahs were cooked - they looked very ugly then they were served up! We rested a bit more (it was too hot to do anything else) and Paulo made everyone a necklace made from either coconut trees or aligator teeth. We then went horseriding and spent about 2 hours trekking across the open plains.
The next day we headed off to the Miranda River and took a boat trip. We were taken to a spot where we could swim in the river but decided against it as we´d only just seen some caimen in the river and didn´t fancy being their lunch!
We then headed off to Bonito - a 4 hour drive away.
We got to border control,
got our passports stamped as we left and then trekked over the border and entered Brazil! After lunch, we drove for 3 hours to the Pantanal. We kept stopping en route as our driver kept pointing out various animals - deer, racoons and eagles. We even saw caimen (a type of aligator) and managed to stand a few feet away for a photo! We were taken for a 2 hour trek through the forest by our guide, Paulo, who cut down anything that stood in our way. We saw lots of monkeys and parrots. It was very humid and the mosquitos keep buzzing around! We drove to our base camp for the next 2 nights - we´ll be sleeping in hammocks!The next day we got woken by a dawn chorus of birds (we were virtually outdoors except a roof and a mosquito net surrounding us!) Paulo took us for another walk and we saw giant otters , more monkeys, toucans, paraqueets and capivara (water pigs).
Then we stopped at a river and fished for our lunch - piranahs! It took a while to get used to fishing but in the end, Kate & I managed to catch 4 piranahs each and I also caught another fish that was thrown back in! We had to use cow heart as bate! Kate managed to swing one of her piranah´s and it hit me in the back - good thing that it had a hook in its mouth or it might have tried to eat me!We stopped at a camp in the middle of the
forest for lunch. We rested on hammocks while the piranahs were cooked - they looked very ugly then they were served up! We rested a bit more (it was too hot to do anything else) and Paulo made everyone a necklace made from either coconut trees or aligator teeth. We then went horseriding and spent about 2 hours trekking across the open plains. The next day we headed off to the Miranda River and took a boat trip. We were taken to a spot where we could swim in the river but decided against it as we´d only just seen some caimen in the river and didn´t fancy being their lunch!
We then headed off to Bonito - a 4 hour drive away.
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