Pantanal National Park

Muito Bonito Hostel staff, Pamela, is efficient and organize everything well. The driver was punctual for both days and is cheerful and showed us wildlife along the way. Then it’s back to reality, the driver to pick us to Pantanal National Park is late for an hour. We drove to Miranda and changed to a minibus, then change again to a small truck outside Pantanal National Park for a 3 hour ride into the park. Accom is basic with bed and attached bathroom. Mosquitoes are in abundant, and any area not covered by insect repellant will be bitten. My hair is thinning and the scalp got bitten also.

That evening, we went to do light spotting of caimans. As we sat on the boat, the guide will navigate close to the bank and shine his powerful torch onto the water near the bank to spot for caimans. There are plenty to be seen. My headlight of 140 lumens don’t do too badly also.

On the 2^nd day in PNP, we went onto the boat to look at animals. Birds (white-necked egrets, falcons, greater kisdadee, cattle egret?, etc) are everywhere. We saw a group of capybaras at the bank and they were startled and jumped into the water and promptly disappeared from sight. We then landed on the river bank and went to walk among the caimans, it can be a little scary as we are not sure whether the caimans will attack us. Further on along the river, the guide spotted a pair of howler monkeys high up in the tree. The male is totally black, and the female is totally chestnut in colour…..AWESOME. As we were coming back to the basecamp, we briefly caught a glimpse of heads of 2 giant river otters. Not too bad for a morning with 3 mammals spotted. It would have been perfect if we spotted a jaguar.

Muito Bonito Hostel

Bittern

Hey Baby!

Capybara

Howler monkeys (black male/chestnut female)

Turkey vulture

Caracara

 

In the afternoon, we were experiencing Brazilian time as we waited for an hour for our guide to bring us to go piranhas fishing. He brought along a slab of beef fat and bamboo poles to fish. The hooks are huge and they have wire leaders. And so we boated to the opposite bank and lowered our hooks some 10ft into the water. As I felt a tug from the piranha, I struck and the main line broke. So the guide re-tie a hook for me Second time that I struck, I got the fish and it is my first wild piranha. When S felt a tug, she struck and the main line also broke, and to our disappointment the guide has no more hooks and we had to share a pole, so slack! Eventually we came back at about 5.30pm and had fried piranhas for dinner. The meat is firm and sweet, really good eating fishes.

On the last morning, we loaded our backpacks onto the truck for the trip out of Pantanal National Park. Along the way, we went to look for anacondas but as usual no joy. But, we did see wild pigs, and 1 deer from afar thanks to our binos. We came to a pond that has lots of maribu storks in it but was blocked by mimosa-like shrubs. No one wants to go nearer to see the storks except S and I. And so we went bashing through the shrubs and it is really hard as there are many thorns. Eventually we came out onto the pond and all the maribu storks took flight. It was a gorgeous sight.

The next pond that we went to was also splendid and had maribu stork, black vultures and surprise.. a couple of flamingos. Simply awesome. There were also caimans basking in the sun along the trail. After ogling at the birds for about ½ hour, we make our way back to the truck and went to the campsite for our lunch. As usual, lunch fare is mediocre. I think it’s because of the low price that we paid for this trip.

My 1st wild piranha

Nice piranhas goreng

Drying down feathers

Wild pigs

Maribu storks

We eventually make our way out of Pantanal National Park and hopped onto a minibus for a 3-hour ride to Campo Grande. After checking into Ecological Expedition Hostel for a free night stay, we went to a local restaurant for an excellent and cheap buffet dinner.

That evening, all the traveling and enjoyment eventually caught up with us. Both of us had gastric flu. Well, with some carbon pills, flu medication, and some TCM medicine, we were well again the next day.