Brumado Hotel Campo Grande

... and our unhelpful guide, we did have a good time! It didn't really compare to the Amazon in terms of an experience, the guides or the scenery, but we did get to see the animals we couldn't see in the jungle. Which I suppose was the whole point of the Pantanal. We did book a cheaper trip so couldn't really complain about Gabrielle, and to be fair to him he did know where the animals were that we wanted to ...

... have been a clue!

After a long, bumpy , and dusty ride over what was essentially a dirt track we finaly made it into Quijarro on the Brazil order. When they pulled my bag out of the hole it as covered in dust. Managed to get a taxi to take me to the border, who then proceded to load up an old woman's bags and cases of fruit (there were a lot of them) into the car. She had to sit on them while i was up front. Got dropped off at the border and then ...

... few rare hyacinth macaws in nearby trees? One of the group is into birds and is very excited. This species of blue macaw is endangered and here were about 3 of them on this farm. We arrive at the lodge area where we are not staying (we chose camping at 50 dollars cheaper for the 3 nights stay). It looks ok and has a pool. We then drive across to the camping area about 500 up another road and arrive at our area. It is a big 2 story wooden building where underneath is open like a ...

... om 21:15 zou komen en dat we maar iets moesten gaan eten. Toch best lastig als er een stuk of zes bussen rond hetzelfde tijdstip komen, geen van allen indicatie heeft waar ze heen gaan en bij het navragen bij de buschauffeurs iedereen naar een ander wees, maar uiteindelijk hadden we toch onze bus gevonden en wisten we zelfs wat in slaap te sukkelen. Af en toe wakker worden van die rugleuning die toch wel heel hard aan het poeren was of van een of ...

So we arrived in Campo Grande happy to leave the bus behind us, and were met at the bus station by a representative of the Pantanal Tour group we had booked, Ecological Expeditions. They took us to their hostel which was directly across the road from the bus station and seemed to our tired eyes a small slice of paradise, we were given a room to dump our stuff and shower, encouraged to have breakfast which was served outside by the pool and consisted of lots of fresh fruit ...

... In the afternoon, we went horse riding. I had a beautiful white horse like Prince Charming and Sean had an old and grey one who was so slow and lazy. I was happy I was given a nice horse as it was my first time and I did not do too bad (T'aurais été fière de moi Clem, je me tenais super droite comme tu fais!!) We rode in the forest and some horses and people got stung by bees. There was a bit of panic for a moment with horses going everywhere. We then went in the lake for the horses to ...

Not much to say about Campo Grande really as it is just a stop over for us on our way into the Pantanal. We will say that the bus ride up from Rio was pretty cool. It was 25 hours long which wasn't so great but the sights on the way were fantastic. The scenery was amazing with lots of green fields ...

... I'll definatly do it again though as its a really fun and rewarding thing to do, I loved it. Right now were in Sucre in Bolivia, its a lovely old colonial town, all white washed colonial buildings and bolovians in traditional attire. We went to see 68 million year old dinosaur footprints today which was cool. I'll update the blog with more pics soon, hope your all well and looking forward to seeing some of you for christmas drinks...god how this years flying! Steve :)

... 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 ...