Ibis Campo Grande

The first half of today was mainly travelling again! Breakfast was good this morning, with lots of fruit, and cake and doce de leite (yummy caramel stuff which Caz has been spreading on bread.... mmm healthy!). We had a long mini-bus trip to start with, but got chatting to the other people on the tour which was good. After about 4 hours we changed to a 4x4 and actually entered the Pantanal wetlands reserve, and had another bumpy journey before we got to our camp. We ...

... did the immigration and cought a bus to campo grande to do the pantanal. Finally got here at 6 this evening, booked my tour, and now here i am. Not a lot going on in CG, managed to grab a bite to eat but cant see any bars anywhere and all seems a little dead. Looking forward to getting into the pantanal tomorrw, should be good, out there for 4 days. Then i figure its off to rio for just over a week. The final stint of the tour. My god its come around fast!

... is a river just beside the camp and there are caiman there sitting in the water and on the banks. These are fresh water alligators of smaller size and not as dangerous as Australian crocs. We eat dinner and it is great as we are hungry and again sick of living on biscuits or cheese and ham rolls. The cook is an older lady who cooks for the camp. We have paid for the 3 nights which includes all meals ad water and activities. The Food is Brazilian style with beans, rice and stewed meat ...

Day 1 Left from Campo Grande and arrived at camp about 4pm. Had a look around the camp and h ad a quiet night. Camping next to a river full of caymen, sleeping in a room about the kitched full of hammocks and covered off with mosquito nets. Day 2 Went on a boat trip up the river. Nearly drowned as the boat was leaking and we we're bailing water for the hour we were in it. Didnt see much, a few birds and a capiburra (google it ...

... hot, we were tired, grumpy and feeling grimy from travel despite the showers in Campo Grande - so we collapsed into our hammocks for an afternoon nap which was surprisingly refreshing and comfortable. In fact over the course of our stay we became huge fans of the hammock especially for lounging in during the heat of the afternoon! On our first full day we were up extremely early and left for a boat ride down through the wetlands wildlife spotting. The pickings were ...

... spotting. In the afternoon, we went tubing on the river. Well, I did not, the river is brown and full of caimans and piranhas.It looked fun though and Sean enjoyed it. In the evening, a big group from a nearby university arrived at the pousada for the week end. There was a good singing sessions with a few guys playing the guitar. Some were great entertainers. We were given caipirinha in a big plastic bottle for everybody to pass around. They even made caaiprinska with vodka. Total ...

I thought I'd write something as its been a while, well were in South America now and I have to say were having a great time. Flying in from Auckland was a bit wierd as we left Auckland at 4.45pm and arrived in Santiago at about 1pm the same day after a 10 plus hours on a plane! Santiago's not much to look at to be honest and I would recomend any one who visits this part of the world to get a cab for an extra hour and go strait to Valpariso to the north. We did ...

... England! We opted for a tour to a Ranch/lodge that was 5 hours drive from CG leaving the next day and the trip out to the ranch had some great and varied scenery from reminding us of Harrismith in SA to the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The lodge was nice and had much more than we had anticipated, with two pools, games rooms, hammoks, volleyball and badmenting courts and a football field. The area is very vaired with rivers and fields and teaming with ...

... long trousers and socks, insect repellant and if we don't mind looking like numpties, tucking our trousers into our socks so that we can reduce the risk of being nibbled by an creature that, well, likes nibbling. Although aprehensive, Claire and another British woman soldiered on as we walked though grassland, forests and by lakes where again, we saw the odd caiman. We spotted a few toucans along the way thanks to the alertness of Pierre, chief toucan ...

... a satelite and communications on the farm. However, we drove to the out station on the first farm and I gathered why the Patanal is so attractive to tourists. Animals, Animals and more Animals. There farms where infested with caymen, ant eaters, bores or pigs, all types of birds, etc. etc. etc. Highlights 1. The massive amount of animals in one location. 2. The highlands and lowlands on the farm. The lowlands are covered in water. 3. Hunting and shooting a ...