The Pantanal - December 4-7

After leaving the Brazillian Iguazu Falls we navigated two city busses successfully to get us to the bus terminal. This is quite a feat considering we don't know a word of Portuguese- it makes us realize we actually knew a decent bit of Spanish now that we can't use it! We got to the bus terminal and were disappointed to find there was no ATM nor money exchange- since we had crossed the border that morning we had searched desperately for a way to get Brazilian Reals, but between my daily limit, Lisa's non working debit card, and no exchanges, we were stuck with only 150 Reals between us. So we hopped on our bus heading to 'Dourados,' a town we had never heard of and one that is not in our lonely planet guide book, with the plan to get a bus there to Bonito. We arrived to Dourados at 3am to find again, no source of money, and nothing to do but wait on a bench for the ticket office to open. Of course once it did, the tickets to Bonito were cash only, and not a soul around at 6am spoke English to help us find funds so we had to change our plans. Tickets to Campo Grande accepted credit card, so we had to make the decision to skip Bonito (and unfortunately miss out on snorkeling and cave diving), and head straight to Campo Grande instead. Another restless bus ride and we made it to Campo Grande and managed to arrange a hostel that even came and picked us up from the terminal. We were thankful to get there, have a room to ourselves, and some time to get organized. We spent the day (with the help of the kind Rodrigo at the hostel) trying to figure out Lisa's non working debit, then our tour of the Pantanal, and then we managed to book pretty much the rest of our trip so as to avoid more stress like the past couple days had caused. We may not be the best figure-it-out-as-you-go type backpackers, yet :P

On a brighter note, we had a relaxing evening and a good night sleep so things were great again as we headed off in the morning for our three day tour of the Brazilian Pantanal! The Pantanal is a massive jungle/wetland area with tons of wildlife. We drove in a van for a few hours, and then piled into the box of a truck and went another couple hours. As we got further and further down the bumpy dirt road the scenery got more and more amazing. It was similar to the jungle, extremely green and lush, but quite flat and much more tropical than we have seen so far. We appreciated the wind whipping past us as the Brazilian sun was beating down quite strong as we drove along. We rushed past palm trees, and greeny blue lagoons which, once we slowed down, we realized were full of caymans (small alligators), exotic birds, capybaras, deer and lizards! It was a very exciting drive in! Finally we arrived at the river, Rio Paraguay, where we took a small ferry across and reached our lodge. A nice big house where we had an air conditioned dorm (yay) with the 5 others on the tour, and awesome scenery, lounge area, pool table etc. Our guide Carlos met us and showed us around and assured us the river was safe to swim in, so we all changed and went for a dunk before dinner.

After dinner was our first activity, a night time boat ride. We piled in a little tin boat with a bunch of flashlights. There were so many stars out! Caymen eyes glow red when hit by the flashlight. We spotted our first one about 5m from where we were swimming earlier, which is when Carlos told us that there are caymen and piranhas throughout the entire river, yet still claimed its perfectly safe to swim in! We drove up the river for about a half hour and saw hundreds of caymens on the bank and swimming beside the boat. Very eerie to spot just the red eyes watching you in the pitch black! They are very slinky when they slide under the water hidden from sight. We also saw some jumping fish but none actually jumped in the boat.

The next morning we got up at 6 for a quick breakfast before heading out on our anaconda hunt! We boated up the Rio Paraguay a ways, stopping to take pictures of caymen and birds, then went up the Rio Negra a ways before stopping the boat. We waded through a small swamp (which is scary when you can't see the bottom and you know you're in anaconda territory!) and got to a beautiful lake with horses grazing around it and thousands of birds. The colors in the pantanal are so vibrant, the lime green grass rippling in the wind as far as you can see and the bright blue sky are stunning. We hunted for about an hour around the lake but couldn't scare up any anacondas (which Court was okay with). The scenery was well worth the walk anyways!

Back at the lodge we had an afternoon siesta where everyone napped in our room for an hour. The hot sun really tires you out quickly! After lunch it was time for piranha fishing. Our rods were long bamboo poles with fishing line and a hook attached. For bait we had raw chicken skin. Apparently Canadians know how to fish because we both pulled out three piranhas right away while the boys struggled to catch their first one. Piranhas really do have sharp teeth! We each helped Carlos descale and clean the piranhas. They have very fine scales and are not slimy at all but almost smooth. A little less scary looking than we were expecting until you open their jaws! They definitely have big teeth!

Back at the lodge we grabbed a cold beer and jumped in the river to cool off (yes, the pirranha infested river). The water is so warm though its almost a bathtub! We killed time until dinner when we ate our piranhas. There is not a lot of meat on them! The small amount we did have was good- white meat. That night we grabbed some beers from a nearby store and we enjoyed some pool and chatted with our group.

In the morning after packing up our bags we took the speedboat across the river to where the truck was waiting. We drove about an hour to our first stop which was a nature walk through the forest. We saw some black howler monkeys, macaws and lots of termite nests! Our next stop was lunch where we had an hour to kill lying in some hammocks while lunch was made. Then we just went to the "bus stop" where we waited a very long time in the hot sun for our van to take us back to Campo Grande. We got to the bus terminal at 8pm which left us just enough time to 'freshen up' with wet wipes before getting on our 8:30 overnight bus to São Paulo.

-Court and Lisa