Pantanal Part 2

The next day, we got up early to take a boat trip on the river to spot some wild life. We saw so many animals it was amazing. The boat was able to get close enough to the animals for me to get some pretty good shots before they would run away. We saw many caiman, kapibaras, kingfishers, howler monkeys, iguanas and other animals. Halfway of the tour we were swimming on one of the sandy beaches on the shore of the river. We were all a little reluctant to get in, after all the caiman we saw, but as soon as we saw Paulo dive in we saw it was ok and we joined him. And then! Dave got bitten in his toe. We were all a bit confused at what had happened but when we saw the blood gushing down his foot we all ran out of the water like a horde of stampeding horses.

After returning to the ranch for a nice lunch we set off again but this time for a safari drive to the end of the world. We drove and drove and drove and there was no end to it. Just a dusty dirt round infront and behind us. Luckily for us, we constantly spotted wildlife.

At one point we stopped and got off the truck to find an anaconda. Paulo would just walk around in the knee deep mud barefoot, a little crazy if you ask me, and search for a big snake. At one point they found one, it was in the roots of a tree, so Paulo just grabbed it from behind and literally pulled it out of the tree roots. I got a photo holding the snake but if you think about it, it’s not very eco friendly tourism. You are getting sun cream and deet on the delicate skin of the snake, probably damaging it as deet melts plastic and metal. We headed on and finally arrived at some civilization where there was a ferry crossing the Rio Paraguay. We were 30 km from the Bolivian border. We stayed there a couple of minutes and then turned around for another agonizingly long trip on the dirt sandy road.

Back at the campsite some of the local jungle boys came around to ask if anyone wanted to play football with them. I sprang up in excitement because it was one of the things I wanted to check off my list while in South America. We played in a cow pasture first hushing the cows away and then bringing out the nets. We played 6 aside running and slipping and sliding through the cow shit in our bare feet. The locals did it and as I wanted to fit in, so did I. The game was fantastic! The Brazilians played with a lot of elegance and speed. It was very dynamic and very hard to snatch the ball off them because they kept passing unlike European football. After an hours game play I got back all sweaty and covered in cow shit. But it was probably the greatest football game I had ever played!

The last day at the Pantanal we had two activities: a jungle walk and piranha fishing. In the morning we set off really early and walked through the jungle in silence. It’s not easy to spot animals in the jungle because most of the time you are watching out where to put your feet so you don’t fall over. Luckily, Paulo was able to spot some howler monkeys, toucans, and an armadillo. Paulo also collected a type of cactus plant for us with which he made these fantastic plant bracelets. The interior xylem or phloem of these plants were so strong he said you could even sow through jeans with them. He used a spoon and a knife to scrap the flesh off leaving only the sap tubes. With these sap tubes he then made the bracelets by tightly twisting them and then tying it around our wrists. It’s a very strong fibre.

In the afternoon, we went to a small pond with caiman and piranhas to go and catch the dinner of tonight. Once the line has been thrown in, it only takes about 3 seconds before you need to tug it out again! The piranhas eat the entire bait up like that. (snap your fingers while you say that) Once we had caught enough fish we headed back to the ranch where Paulo would begin scaling them and gave them to the cook. That was that days’ dinner. It was incredible. The piranha takes quite sweet but is still a quite hard fish meat to chew. They also have fish bones going horizontally through the fish not just vertically, like other fish.