Pantanal: So much Wildlife!

The Pantanal is the World’s largest wetland area located in Brazil but stretches over to Bolivia and Paraguay as well. During the rainy season, October through March, the Rio Paraguai along with other main rivers, flood the area and cause a cluster of dry patches to form. As a result, animals are attracted to the dry patches making it an excellent place to spot exotic wildlife not seen anywhere else in South America.

We were staying in a Pantanal resort called Santa Clara. Essentially, the resort was a ranch or farm with a bunch of building to accommodate the guests. All the sleeping quarters were air-conditioned and en suite. This place was fantastic! There were multiple thatched huts with arm chairs and hammocks hanging everywhere for chillaxing along with a pool and a beach volleyball court. They still use an open fire to cook over for certain dishes and have a large grill for cooking meat on. The food they served was delicious. There was a whole salad buffet as well as a hot buffet serving Arroz com Feijao e carne (Rice with beans and meat), pastas, fishes, juicy local vegetable stews and not to mention the dessert table with fruits and doce de leite.

Seeing as the resort was a farm, it had a bunch of wildlife everywhere. There were two tamed wild boars that would hobble around eating food off your hand and rescued macaws, parakeets, geese and other small birds. All day you are greeted with birds singing and chirping. Moreover, there were two rescued baby toucans in the laundry building they we soooo CUTE!

When we arrived we had to get out of Bob Esponja and get into a smaller truck as the weight and size of the truck was too large to go into the Jungle. We were warm heartedly greeted by Paulo and Pedro, two fantastic guides. We drove for about an hour, like we were driving to the end of the world, on a dusty sand road cross wooden bridges that creaked and looked like would collapse and minute. On the way, we had our first sighting of Caymans and water buffalos as well as other birds.

At the resort half of us then set off to go horse riding in the afternoon. We were all proper gauchos riding through the ranch which seemed to be endless, it was so big. Mind you, it took 10 minutes by car to drive from the gate to the resort. Carolina, my horse’s name, was very feisty always running to be the first one of the group and wouldn’t do anything to start her off. It was quite frightening to go so fast and have almost no control over the horse because she just did what she wanted to do. Along with excellent scenery, we also got to spot some wildlife, including wild toucans and a deer. We stopped about halfway to go to some similar resort, which was just a broken down campsite. The owner was very welcoming and fed us some fresh mangos. He would literally take a big stick and knock them out of the tree. We were even given 6 other fresh ripe mangos to take back to the campsite with us. While back on the horses the bag with the mangos that I was carrying ripped and I had to carry the mangos in my t-shirt using my mouth to hold up the t-shirt like a bag. I can only presume that the other riders thought it looked hilarious, me bouncing up and down on the horse with a t-shirt full of mangos.