Brazilistol Exceler Plaza Hotel Campo Grande

Our last activity was piranha fishing this morning, before our long trip back to Campo Grande this afternoon. To be fair, Gabrielle was a bit happier and helpful today (but by no means what I would call happy or helpful!). We walked from our camp along the banks of the nearby river, to a picturesque spot of the river, which had a big sandbank like a beach, and a pool of water which had a big group of fresh ...

Tried to buy a train ticket to the Brazil border but no such luck. Had to buy a semi cama ticket, fortunately it only cost 7 quid though, which is pretty good for a 15 hour bus journey. Got on the bus, and my god what a banger. Hadn't seen one this bad since I first got into Bolivia. It was red hot and I struggled to open the window. Thought it was typical tht the only bus in bolivia where the window doesn't open itself would be on the hottest one of the lot ...

... and bottled water. We are none the wiser as to the arrangements of this tour and sit and wait for information which doesn't come. We are tired and hope this is not going to be a dud set up. The Pantanal is a massive area which is supposedly a place where there is abundant wildlife seen ore easily than the Amazon and it is actually all privately owned as it is fared with cattle but the farms retained large areas of natural habitats for the wildlife. The area receives abundant rain in ...

... eerste dag in Brazilie samen met tandenbijtende Felipe hadden gezien. Cool! En zo te zien ging het er weer hard en passioneel aan toe. Om 18:00 uur vertrok onze bus en inderdaad het was weer even wennen: semi-cama klasse. De stoel was net te kort, net te laag, net te smal, de voetensteun kon niet horizontaal, trouwens steun?, alleen mijn enkels werden ondersteund, de rest hing er gewoon boven. Vast voor de kleine Braziliaantjes. Aangezien we twee kaartjes ...

... for bringing a heap of black market t-shirts from Paraguay. OK! so we're on our way again. Get to the petrol station where we change bus, have some food, and wait. And wait. And wait. A guy gets a call frmo the company saying the bus has broken down wiht a flat battery. Awesome. So we wait more and after a couple of hours it turns up and we are finally on our way. Went to a ...

... un bebe rongeur .... Ils crient, le jaguar s'echappe, et nous restons bredouilles, scrutant la rive les yeux ecarquilles dans l'espoir d'une nouvelle attaque eclair. Ca n'arrivera pas. C'etatit ma derniere chance avant le retour a la civilisation, ou plutot le retour a une autre jungle, la jungle urbaine cette fois.... Nouvelle nuit en bus, direction l'une des villes les plus dangereuses au monde, Sao Paulo....!

... The day before, they saw a jaguar! We were gutted we missed it by one day!! That night, we ate our own catch of the day. We felt very proud but it was weird to see the fried face of the piranhas. Oh yeah, and mosquitoes are back!!We have not had them since Tulum and did not miss them (on a pensé a toi, Marine!) <br><br>The next day (20/11/08- joyeux anniv Alice..18 ans, ça ne me rajeunit pas du tout ca...me souviens avoir vu ton echo avec ta maman et j'avais rien vu...j´avais 9ans ...

... cayman got a bit close, 5 feet away at one point! We caught loads of them and cooked them up in a nice spicy stew, and I've kept a lower jaw bone as a moment! Its a beautiful place here and we went out exploring it on horse back. My friend Nadine would of been proud of me. I've never been on a horse before and was pretty nervous, but buy the end of the day i was trotting past everyone and even managed a few gallops! which I have to say scared the life out of ...

... Edson kept tham at bay by poking them with a stick and pushing gently on their heads to stop them coming too close. Claire even had a chance to give one of them a poke to get an idea of what their bodies are like (note - no animals were harmed in the making of this blog, do not try this at home). We also were shown around a museum and picture gallery showing the history of Brazil and the Pantanal and some fantastic shots of the wildlife. It was also ...

... it was very dark and the only sounds were as you would imagine a jungle to sound!! Rustling, buzzing, crickets chirping, birds squawking and unidentifiable splashing going on in the water that I was convinced was an army of alligators laying siege to our camp. At this point we looked at each other by torch light in our very hot tent and wondered if we had made the right decision saying we would stay for four days. The rain only lasted 30 minutes and ...