Pantanal – a fun outing in the Brazilian wetlands
The Pantanal is the largest floodplain in the world and each lodging there is extremely remote with some only being accessible by a private flight. Our accommodation was one of many working cattle farms in the region which had a dedicated area to cater for tourists.
The minibus from Campo Grande dropped us off and we switched transport to ride with someone from our ‘Pousada’ and an Italian tourist – Enzo, we were in the back of a Black Ute which we drove for about two hours down a long, bumpy dirt road to our accommodation. There were multiple bridges along the track that in the wet season give safe passage over the raging water and stops the elevated road from being washed away by the floods. Our driver expertly manoeuvred the rutted path with a practised hand, knowing the exact line to take to make the ride as smooth as possible.
When we made it to the inn, we dropped off our bags and were advised that we’d immediately be going out on a driving tour. We hopped onto a. safari truck that took us further along the same dirt road on which we’d just arrived. We met three other English people on the truck, a couple Robbie and Izzy, and a solo traveller Toby. The couple absolutely loved animals and were desperate to see as much wildlife as they could. At one point on the tour, Robbie thought he’d spotted a family of rheas in a nearby field and got our guide to stop the truck. When it became clear the driver couldn’t reverse any further due to a narrow bridge, he leapt off the back and sprinted back down the road to try and get a better look at the large birds through his binoculars. Everyone else stayed on the truck in bewilderment until he had gone so far that we also climbed down and trudged after him. We couldn’t spot the rheas again unfortunately.
Other than birds we surprisingly didn’t see much driving up the road that was also used by large farming vehicles and freight trucks. We weren’t filled with confidence when we enquired with the others who told us they hadn’t seen anything other than dead cows during the day and a half they’d been at the lodge. This was quite cool though as it did indicate that there were some predators in the area.
We stayed out until dark and walked the grounds of an abandoned farm where a tapir ran alongside the road nearby to where we were walking. I caught its silhouette with its weird-looking trunk, but it got scared off by Robbie ducking between the wire fence of the field we were in and running towards it. There were a few instances of this during the couple of days they stayed, his enthusiasm and speed to see the animals scared them off before anyone else could catch a glimpse.
I, probably naively, expected the farm to be vast with lots of land filled with wildlife, there were hundreds of birds where we stayed but not too many animals as their presence would have been discouraged by the farm to protect the livestock. We were told each cow is worth about R$200,000 and this made me think the farm’s priority was opposite to what the tourists wanted to see. The birds were super cool though and I made use of my new binoculars, stunning and vibrant Hyacinth and Red-and-Green Macaws were mainstays and we also saw a couple of rarer Toco Toucans which was sick.
We returned from the drive to a prepared meal of rice, beans, pasta and marinated, grilled chicken. It was fucking delicious and this high standard of food continued throughout our stay. Rice, beans and pasta were regulars with the meat dish differing each meal. It was so good to have consistent, nutritious and delicious meals as this has been lacking so far on our trip due to the constant long journeys, moving on every few days and our laziness in buying and cooking food.
The tour guide at the Pousada was known as Jaguarman, he was a bit of a legend who always had a story to tell, usually about how many animals used to be in the area or how one time he’d seen a jaguar here. We think his name is self-proclaimed but he had a great knowledge and love for the wildlife and Pantanal area which was extremely infectious. He had many catchphrases, including: “Yeehaw”, “Hood love”(?), saying the animals were “In Yoga mode” or “Had too much Cachaça last night” and appreciably conveying “Thanks for the show” every time we left them.
We became pretty friendly with him as he took a bit of a liking to us, probably because we listened and encouraged his stories in comparison to the others who almost seemed bored that he was there. He warned me of girls with blonde hair and blue eyes as he had been stung by someone when he was younger who “was the love of his life”, he opened up to us about his past; living in America, being a chef and dealing with anxiety and insomnia. On our last day, he gave us a massive, brilliantly blue tail feather from a Hyacinth Macaw and a jar of Nutella, as well as sharing with us a little of his last Pantanal joint. It was so interesting to speak with someone who had grown up in a remote area of Brazil even if most of what he said was probably bullshit.
After dinner on the first evening, Jaguarman called us over to the porch of one of the bedrooms where a tiddly snake was eating a frog that was hanging half out of its mouth. You watch and read about how snakes can unhinge their jaws to swallow creatures bigger than themselves but it was nuts to see this happening right in front of us. Jaguarman advised us it was a ‘Frog Mouth’ snake which sounded like a made-up name that he’d come up with on the spot because it had a frog in its mouth. A later Google showed there is no such snake, but it could’ve just been a bad translation.
The next day was my birthday and I had made Gayds promise not to let anyone know. It was arranged by Jaguarman on the previous evening that we would do a morning walk around the farm, so we woke at 4.30 am and patrolled the grounds. We saw some footprints of animals from the night before but that was unfortunately all we saw and it was a little too cloudy to be a good sunrise, so we fell back to bed for an hour before breakfast.
The cooks had laid out a big spread and I ended up eating pizza and cake for my birthday breakfast, what a start to the day. For the morning activity, we drove over to a far corner of the property and boarded a tiny tin boat that we’d take down the river. The engine took a lot of attempts to get going and kept conking out throughout the ride. I feared at one point it wouldn’t start up again and we’d have to swim back through the caiman and piranha-infested waters. There was also one section where it was too shallow for the boat (being dry season) and we had to hop out and drag it along the sand to where it got deep enough again. Whilst dragging the boat, Jaguarman cut his toe pretty badly on one of the bushes growing in the river and I got slightly worried that he’d become a target for the piranhas.
The boat ride was incredible and easily the best thing we did during our stay. We saw so many cayman, a small blonde anteater in a tree, a giant otter, as well as hundreds of beautiful and elegant birds, my favourites being the kingfishers, hawks and the massive jabirus. There were many “Thanks for the show”s from Jaguarman, who advised us we were lucky to see the anteater and giant otter as they were both extremely elusive creatures.
During lunch, we found out that Robbie and Izzy were cycling down the whole length of South America. They had gone from England to Spain on a bike, stowed onto a cruise ship over to the Caribbean, gotten down to Bolivia and planned on following the Andes all the way down. They were pretty interesting people and didn’t seem bored answering our many questions about their trip, although we ended the conversation with still so much more to ask. I don’t think they are the type to have social media and we didn’t get any contact details from them before they left, so unfortunately we’ll not be able to keep up with their travels.
As I mentioned, Robbie loved animals and they’d taken a detour off their route to visit the Pantanal for the wildlife, although they caught a bus rather than cycling! He was actually the one to spot the anteater in the tree, putting Jaguarman to shame. One of the drives, he spotted something, banged on the safari bus to get it to stop and exclaimed with excitement in his posh voice: “It’s a Seriema!” which Gayds and I have been repeating ever since.
Izzy seemed a bit grumpier but loosened up the more we chatted. I don’t think she can be blamed to be fair, cycling at least 50km in a day, having to camp and wake up to do it all again sounds pretty shit to me.
That afternoon we went horse riding, it was my first ever time on a horse so I was a bit nervous. It was all fine though after I clambered on and the horse turned out to be super chill and didn’t bolt away. They were small ponies rather than horses and ultimately we could’ve walked faster ourselves with the speed we were going. I think this activity is better when it’s the wet season and you’re riding through floods; I still enjoyed my first time on a horse, especially as I didn’t chafe as much as I was warned I would.
When we first got to the stables, there were four regular-sized horses and one tiny, stumpy-looking pony which we all laughed at and agreed was surely not going to be ridden. We mounted the others one by one until Jaguarman ushered Toby over to the poor-looking horse. It was hilarious seeing him with his feet almost dragging on the ground, although in the end, it was probably the most game horse of them all.
Toby had been working in Colombia for about a year teaching English at a University in a small city no one had heard of. He studied Spanish at Uni and was another interesting person to meet and learn his story. He gave us a few ideas about improving our Spanish and maybe even earning some money teaching with a Tefl qualification. I wasn’t sure why he paid to visit the Pantanal though as he seemed pretty uninterested during every activity.
That evening we had some drinks whilst playing cards. I convinced him and Gayds to get some Cachaça and got Enzo involved too. A ‘dose’ was only R$5 and turned out to be almost a whole cup rather than the shot I thought it would be. It was tasty but hard to get down straight, so we ended up playing a drinking game and again managed to get Enzo involved despite him not speaking any English. He struggled with the rules even with Toby explaining to him in Spanish, their common language. Eventually, it clicked and he became the master from then on winning every time.
Enzo was fucking cool too, older and travelling through Brazil on his own. He explained to us through Toby that he was doing it as “He didn’t have a woman tying him down”. An easygoing guy who we got on well with, even though we weren’t able to communicate directly. It was funny that during every activity, Jaguarman explained things to him in English despite Enzo telling him constantly that he didn’t understand.
The next morning after breakfast we went fishing for Piranhas. We were given a bamboo rod and the guides put raw chicken onto the hooks as bait for the fish. We started on a moored boat where I caught a catfish that was too small and had to be thrown back, before moving onto the banks of the river. In the end, it felt like we just fed piranha raw chicken for two hours as they constantly ate the bait without getting hooked. We did have some luck and caught about seven of them between us, although I didn’t get anything other than the catfish at the start which I was pretty frustrated about. I stayed at it, determined not to be beaten and ended up the last one out there, searching for dregs of raw chicken on the ground only to once again be mugged off by the fish, giving them another free snack.
Toby and Enzo left that afternoon leaving just Gayds and I as the only tourists. This was a bit awkward and we were advised we had a free afternoon and only a walk of the grounds on the morning of our last day. I was a bit annoyed about this as we could’ve paid 2/3 of the price, stayed for only two nights and done basically everything we wanted to do. Gayds however reminded me where we were and how cool it was to be in the Pantanal. I metaphorically slapped myself as she was right, it was fucking cool that we were just chilling on a hammock in the middle of the biggest floodplain and one of the most diverse wildlife areas in the world.
A bit later, we wandered down to the river where we’d been that morning and sat on the banks to watch the sunset. We thought there hadn’t been much patience from Jaguarman when trying to spot animals, so we sat and waited to see if anything came to the river. We ended up seeing a few more caiman, a hawk that got right next to us, and just before we left, a swamp deer drinking from the river close to where we sat. It was super cool as it was much more our style to chill somewhere for a while and in the end, we were rewarded for it. I forgot about my previous concerns and decided it was pretty sick that we essentially had the run of the place.
The next day we were due to walk about the farm but Jaguarman’s foot was hurt from the cut, so we rode the horses again instead. We didn’t see any fauna, but he did take us to the “Jaguar Cemetery”, an area filled with cow bones where one jaguar takes and eats cattle from the farm. It was pretty nuts to see and made me think that perhaps a few predators were roaming around after all.
No more tourists were arriving, so Jaguarman came back to Campo Grande with us that afternoon to have a couple of days off. It was good to keep chatting with him and to have someone who spoke English with us, thankfully it wasn’t too awkward travelling the six hours back as we all kind of did our own thing.
It was surreal leaving and knowing we had finally done the Pantanal! After so much research when we were back at home and booking so far in advance (unnecessarily as it turned out) it was now over and we had done it. It was a bit sad to think about and we didn’t get to see a jaguar (despite being guided by Jaguarman), but it was a fucking fun four days. We had a mega time and once again it was so different from anything we’d ever seen or done before.
As we weren’t going onto Bonito, we had an overnight twelve-hour bus to Cascavel from Campo Grande where we connected for another two-hour bus onto Foz do Iguaçu. I couldn’t believe how far we’d travelled through Brazil just to see the Pantanal, although it was absolutely worth it.
The bus was super late and we waited over two hours more than we should’ve at the station until. it finally showed up. Gayds was fuming as she was tired, grumpy and hungry. She had food but didn’t eat it until we got onto the bus, which I likened to how Smedley won’t drink any water until he’s allowed out of his room. This obviously didn’t get the laugh I thought it deserved.
