Day 213 - Pantanal trip
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2007
1
214
243
Trip End
May 01, 2008
Cuiaba,
Brazil
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The weather today was nowhere near as good as yesterday and it even threatened rain.
We got the boat to the place where we'd taken the jeep to yesterday and then started walking.
The eco walk turned out to be a rather lame walk (now THAT must be an oxymoron if ever I saw one?!) up the track, then another bigger vehicle track into the woods, before turning back again and doing it all in reverse! You'd have thought they could have found a circular trail at least
Boat
.We saw quite a few birds, the most notable being a "bat hawk", but the only animals that we saw were some cute little monkeys leaping between the palm trees, but they didn't really justify the effort of the walk to be honest.
One of the Dutch ladies in our group slipped and fell in the mud, which was bad luck, particularly as the airline had lost her suitcase so she only had the one set of clothes with her!
I guess it was good to get some exercise so we walked back to the boat, ducked under the bridge and then it was a 5 minute ride in the boat back to the lodge.
We chilled out until lunchtime and then had more time to kill until our next expedition at 4pm.
Our afternoon activity today was piranha fishing (!), and Mr & Mrs Fey were particularly looking forward to it!
We weren't quite sure what exactly it would entail, but it certainly sounded like something we were unlikely to be able to repeat in Islington
Capybara
. The only problem with the timing was that Liverpool's crucial Champions League 1/4 final first leg game against Arsenal started at 3:45pm and we were due to start the fishing expedition at 4pm! D'OH.
I sat and watched the start of the game unfolding via the text update service on the BBC website (which can be highly frustrating but at least it's sort of a minute-by-minute commentary) and I sat there as long as I could before nearly getting dragged away by my neck by my glamorous wife...
By the time we left it was 1-1 and if we could keep it there or even sneak another I would be delighted.
I begrudgingly jumped in the boat and we headed back to the bay that we went to last night (the one with the snake monster!), from where we sped across to the far side of the water and dropped a rather flimsy anchor.
Katie and I were then handed a bamboo stick each with a fishing line attached (VERY technical) and we were somewhat unimpressed when both the boat driver and our guide pulled out flash fishing rods for themselves
Duck!
! Bloody cheek. Customer is King? Ever heard of that?!The other group (the Dutch women) pulled up next to us, about 75 yards away and one of them caught a fish inside the first 5 minutes, which was very impressive and extremely annoying as we were getting nowhere fast!
We didn't have much luck at first and the other boat soared into a 3-0 lead. My competitive nature was bubbling under the surface like The Incredible Hulk, but I managed not to have a complete paddy and remained patient!
After about 15 minutes of trying without reeling (pulling!) in a fish, we asked the guide if our technique was ok, because we were both getting bites but we weren't able to bring the fish back to the boat.
The piranhas would nibble away at the bait and leave us with just the hook, despite our efforts to pull the suckers in.
We were given a few tips (which would have been very helpful at the start!), which mainly involved tapping the water with the rod to attract the piranhas and then executing a sharp pull upwards when you felt a bite; apparently piranhas are drawn to vibration and with no reels on our rods we had to lift the rods up sharply to spear the fish with our hooks
Nature walk
. Nice. Minutes after this advice Katie was excitedly standing up and pulling a dangling piranha towards our boat, or more accurately, towards ME!
I was somewhat uncomfortable to say the least at seeing a killer fish full of razor sharp teeth being pivoted towards my lap and therefore screamed at her to deposit the fish at the front of the boat instead, where there were no people sitting! Aye carumba...
The next few seconds were a bit like 'Carry On Piranha Fishing', but we got there in the end, lifting her catch to the driver at the back, who took it off the hook, replaced it with more bait and chucked her line back into the water. Who's the Daddy now Mr Man Easting Piranha Fish?!
A short while later Katie had landed another one! She was proving a dab hand at this, which was pretty ironic considering that she claims to be a vegetarian! ;)
Thankfully I caught the next one to avoid humiliation, which was a bit of a whopper (clearly!) and by this point the two self-proclaimed all-the-gear-but-no-idea "experts" sitting behind us were looking a bit embarrassed
Tracks
. They were getting beaten by the first-time English amateurs! Get in.Katie was by now 2-1 up in our personal challenge, and soon pulled in her 3rd piranha of the night!
By this point the sun had gone down without much fuss, we'd been enjoying ourselves so much that we didn't even notice!
The best thing I could possibly say is that I had the Champions League game on my mind for the first half hour or so, but 10 minutes into the fishing I'd forgotten all about it, which is really saying something, as any of you who know how much I love those red men can confirm!
Anyway, by now Fernando looked determined to show us how it was done and eventually stood up and started reeling in something which he was having to work very hard to bring back to the boat.
He got it right to the edge, I got a photo and then he (literally) let it off the hook! He was GUTTED. It was big, but each time he re-tells this story the fish gets bigger, it will be Moby Dick by this time next week ;)
Buoyed by this renewed sense of competition I caught my second and then my third, so it was all square in the House of Fey Winner Takes All Piranha Challenge
More tracks
! By this point it was getting really dark, so we knew that we wouldn't have long left...
Katie & I were doing really well, but plenty of piranhas were making off with our bait before we could snare them, so we had to be regularly replenished by the driver, which was fun for us but no doubt a big pain in the ass for him. Whatever, who's paying your wages mate! ;)
Katie caught the last piranha of the night and then we headed back across the lake using a very powerful searchlight to lead the way.
Fair play to Katie, she did really well and deserved to go back to the lodge as the Champion!
The journey back was really cool, with the searchlight flashing across in front of us like a Nazi U-boat, attracting hundreds of flies & 'biters' (mozzies) into the boat.
These in turn attracted loads of bats, so we practically flew back to the lodge like a veritable armada of God's Good Creatures..
Hawk
. One noteable event on the way back was when one of the drivers noticed a huge bird sat on top of a dead tree stump.
We couldn't see well enough to identify if it was a big bird of prey or a large owl. So they cut the engines and we drifted closer to shore, making it right up to the bank.
At this point Fernando got quite excited because it was a 'Great Potoo', which despite sounding like a Red Indian was actually a GIANT member of the cuckoo family!
This thing was MASSIVE, it was without a doubt the weirdest looking bird I've ever seen in my life.
It had a tiny beak relative to its big head and ENORMOUS eyes, it looked like an alien or something. (Excellent descriptive work there, Mr Attenborough...)
After this exciting spot we headed back to base, where I suddenly remembered the Champions League game and sprinted to the computer room
Birds nest
. I nervously typed in the website and we delighted that Liverpool had kept Arsenal to 1-1 at the Emirates with the return leg to come at Anfield. GAME ON!
After that we changed and had dinner before heading off to bed because frankly there wasn't much else to do!
We'd absolutely LOVED the piranha fishing and it was nice to relax between the activities, but we hoped for some sun tomorrow to make our time here a bit more enjoyable.
Lots of love,
Al & Katie x
