Pantanal Wetlands - with a few million mozzies

Trip Start Dec 06, 2005

Trip End Jun 17, 2006

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Flag of Brazil Corumbá, Brazil
Friday, January 27, 2006

After the not-so-Death Train, we arrived in Brazil. Met up with Brooks and Jehan to complete the mechatronics awesome foursome. Couldn't get an entry stamp for 3.5 hours because the police take a massive siesta. But that's ok, we could still get into the country and do whatever, they just said "come back at 3". no yellow fever vaccination check, no Xray scan of our bags, pretty standard really. Although we did hear that a cop was shot at the border a few weeks ago, so you would think they would have upped the security a little? Booked a pantanal wetlands tour on the basis of young company - two cool south african blokes and a very multilingual german, rather than a big old german family. Turned out to be a top decision. Struggling a little in Portuguese, however spanish and a few random port. words are getting me by quite alright.

So we got up reasonably early and headed off in an open-air vehicle similar to one you might see doing a safari

01 Uni boys at hostel

. This four hour drive was quite scenic, and we stopped many times to check out some awesome wildlife - small otters, caimans (dangerous small alligator looking things), capybaras (big wombat-size rodents), and stacks of birds. We arrived at our base camp in the middle of the day, in searing summer heat, had lunch, and settled down for a quick 3/4 hour siesta. After the heat had died down somewhat, we loaded up on the insect repellant and went for a jungle bushwalk. The mosquitos were relentless. Luckily I didn't cop much, but some of the other fellas did. We saw plenty of monkeys, possum-like mammals called coatimundis, massive bright crimson macaus, and colourful parrots, amongst the dense tall trees. Great stuff. Our accomodation for this trip was in hammocks with personal mosquito nets in a "dorm" with another mosquito net around it. Needless to say there were HEAPS of mosquitos around at night. Brooksy got bitten on the back through his hammock.

Next day was Australia Day! Normally this is an excuse for a holiday, but when you're away from home it actually means something. I wore my bright aussie gold t-shirt with green southern cross on it. We went for a walk to see the sunrise, but it turned out to be disappointing due to too many clouds. Had breakfast, a short rest, then went for a horse ride. The ride was good fun, the horses were difficult to control, probably because they'd done the same ride every day for years and were kinda in AutoPilot mode

02 Transport in Pantanal

. Halfway through the ride, my stomach started cracking the shits. Uh oh. Continued the ride though, had a great time galloping through some of the plains, didn't see much wildlife but didn't really care. Got back to base and started feeling really sick. The other fellas went fishing in the arvo with piranhas, and for a bushwalk at night by torch light. I was up most of the night sick as a dog.

Next morning the boys went canoeing and swimming in a local river, i was still too sick to join them. However got better during the day, had a small amount of lunch, and was OK during the bus trip out of the Pantanal. So i pretty much missed out on half the tour, but 1 day sick when I've been travelling 2 months isn't a bad ratio. We got tons of buses that day, and overnight, to get to the Iguacu falls, our next big activity.