Pantanal
BRAZIL
Caimans & Capybaras
By AARON
Tuesday, September 26, 2010
If it’s one thing I know, it’s that I’ve been an animal lover from the time I was a kid. From cats and dogs, to a flying squirrel named Rocky and a pet grass snake named Charlie. Whether they were pets at the house or visits to the zoo, animals have always kept my attention. So when we headed out after our death road rally from Santa Cruz to the lush wetlands of the Pantanal, I was like a kid in a candy store…. if the candy store was a giant protected reserve teeming with animals ranging from tropical tucans to 10 meter anacondas.
Before heading to the Pantanal, we stopped in the border town of Corumba, which is where we would have stayed, had the flight not been cancelled the day before in Santa Cruz. No worries, Corumba didn’t seem to have too much to offer, but it did have my 2 favorite Brazilian food addictions, so Lyndi and I headed out at around 9am to a juice bar to get my “fix” of salgados and açaí. These 2 things are the staple meal of anyone traveling and wanting to maintain some sort of a budget. Salgados ($1-3USD) are stuffed pastry bread, filled with anything from gorgonzola cheese to chicken or ham and cheese. Açaí is a local fruit that is frozen immediately upon harvest and is about the size of a big raisin; it’s blended and served in either a bowl or a glass. Not only does it taste great, it’s also one of the most potent antioxidants in the world – all for the low price of about $2USD.
After I had a nice belly full of my Brazilian street food, we headed out to the Pantanal. As I said earlier, the Pantanal is a huge wetland full of wildlife and to put it in perspective, is about the size of France. After about 2 1/2 hours on the road, we pulled up to Passo do Lontra, where we were greeted by a really creepy clown trash can. If you’ve seen Steven King’s “It”, then you know what I’m talking about. I can’t remember the name of our guide for those 3 days, but as soon as he walked up to greet us, Lyndi shouted, “Jackie Chan!” so that stuck with me the whole time we were on the trip.
Our first excursion consisted of us going down to the docks of where we were staying and fishing for piranhas. Yes, that’s right – fishing for piranhas. Being the meat hungry fish that they are, we didn’t have any trouble catching our fair share of them and even had the big ones scaled and fried up by our martial arts movie star turned Wilderness Guide.
Our next morning we were greeted by the sounds of thunder and the bright flashes of lightning that would accompany us for most of the morning before we left for our walking excursion and horseback ride. Once the rain subsided, we took an open jeep for about an hour through what it seemed like the same road that we had just taken from Santa Cruz on our night bus. Thanks to the rain, the dirt road was nice and muddy, but the 4×4 truck did it’s job and got us to our destination. On our way we saw quite a few birds, caimans, a marsh deer, and capybaras. I would have to say that if you don’t see a jaguar or an anaconda on the Pantanal excursion, the next best thing to see would be a capybara and this place was crawling with them. Capybaras are from the rodent family, and have very distinct rodent facial features and a very distinct rounded butt. Coming from the rodent family, you might be turned off by the sight of one, but the fact is, is that they’re just about the cutest creature in the Pantanal. They have this “regal” look to them, very stoic.
We arrived at the ranch where we would do our horseride, and after a nice lunch, we waited the appropriate 30 minutes and then mounted our horses. The horse ride takes about an hour, and aside from some nice landscape and an anteater sighting, not much was seen on this ride through the marshlands. That night we decided it would be fun to play a poker tournament with beans (since they were cheap to buy large quantities), so each of us pitched in 10 reales (about $6USD) and winner took all. Lyndi was out first, but quite pleased when I took first place and doubled up our money. We were now R$40 richer, and the world was our oyster. Our very cheap, cheap oyster.
On our last morning, we took a boat ride along one of the tributaries of the Amazon to observe the wildlife and hopefully spot something as cool as a jaguar. Unfortunately we didn’t see any jaguars, but that didn’t keep us from constantly scanning the banks and underbrush for our spotted friends. The constant scanning did however reveal more capybaras and a bunch of pretty cool birds though.
After the tour, we had about 2 hours to kill before our transfer picked us up and took us from the Pantanal to the town of Bonito, which is known for its many tourist attractions, including one of the clearest lakes in the world. So after some lunch and some packing, we headed out of our dorms, said goodbye to Jackie Chan, and passed the creepy clown trashcan, en route to our transfer that would take us to our next destination.
