Brazil
Pantanal
15-21 July 2011
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All went well with flights and arrival into Sao Paulo. We spent the night near the airport and departed early the next morning for the Pantanal, a vast wetland in Western Brazil. After arrival in Cuiaba, our guide greeted us and loaded our bags atop his Toyota jeep.
Our Guide
After extensive internet research, we booked a guide who owned his own company, Pantanal Trackers. Julinho, (zhou-leen-yo), is of indigenous Brazilian heritage and a larger than life personality. His passion for the Pantanal all of the flora and fauna found there was soon very apparent. After traveling with him for a couple of days, we discovered he’s something akin to a living legend in those parts.
Food
Well, I guess the alimentary delights here take some getting used to! All of the lodges serve meals buffet-style, some better than others. Some of the buffet items are labeled; some are not. When there isn’t a label, it’s impossible to guess the origins or even if it is animal, vegetable or mineral. Beans and rice are the one constant. If nothing else appeals, well, there is your meal! Some dishes, like “crunchy bananas”, are oxymoronic. Who ever heard of a banana that has crunch? This dish has cooked plantains mixed with a ground root, possibly manioc. The crunchy part has the consistency of panko bread crumbs. Fresh fish from the rivers was routinely served at meals. The texture of the fish was firmer than we’re used to—somewhere between fish and chicken. We even had piranha soup. I can’t tell you if it was good; I didn’t try it. The presentation was not so appealing.
Environment
The Transpanateira “highway” runs 150 km. (90 miles) from the frontier town of Pocone to its end in Porto Jofre on the Cuiaba river. I use the word highway very loosely here. In reality, it is a long, long dirt road laced with ridges similar to a washboard. So, we bumped and bumped and bumped along. The entire 90 miles would probably take about 5 ½ hours to travel if driven straight through. Luckily, we stopped at lodges along the way and didn’t have to drive it all at once.
We chose the dry season to come here, since we’d been up to our knees in mud in places like Costa Rica during rainy times. But the dry season has its drawbacks, too. The clouds of dust that rise from the roads are absolutely incredible and seep into every nook and cranny of everything. Our guide didn’t use the A/C in the vehicle, because he told us we needed to acclimate quickly to the searing heat and humidity of the region. Yeah, right! (That’s another paragraph.) So with windows open, we drove. When another vehicle passed us, great billows of dust rose up, and we played opening and closing the windows for the whole trip. The windows were reopened when the dust settled.
Well, the heat is another story. Scorching, brutal heat—between 95 and 105 F with about 90% humidity. When you sweat, it doesn’t evaporate. Then you mix the sweat with the dust, and the result is taking more showers than you ever thought possible in one day. I’m wondering if the Brazilians have as many words for dust as the Eskimos do for snow. The texture varies from all purpose flour to cake flour to talcum powder, to name a few. Then the colors—yellow, orange, red and brown—all dust colors.
The Pantanal consists of many sprawling ranches with lots of Brahma cattle and horses. Visible from the road are dirt paths going for many miles to the ranch houses. When the Pantanal became popular with tourists, several of the ranches decided to build motel-style lodging for tourists on the properties. These are the facilities we stayed in.
Wildlife
There are no words to describe the diversity of wildlife in the Pantanal. There are huge numbers and species of birds, waterbirds and raptors. The rock star of the bird world here is the jabiru stork. He’s about as tall as I am (which isn’t saying much), but they are over 4 Ft. tall. Birds found nowhere else exist here, such as the beautiful and magnificent hyacinth macaw. Anteaters, coati mundis, agoutis, tapirs, capybaras, caimans and the elusive jaguar all make this place their home. When we had gone several miles down the Transpanateira road, wildlife started to appear: first, hawks, then herons and egrets and caimans. In one wetland area, the caimans were so thick; it looked like a caiman carpet.
At the end of the road, we spent 3 nights at the Porto Jofre Hotel (the word hotel should be used loosely, too). The goal was to try to spot a jaguar. We’ve been to other countries where they live, but we’d never seen one, because they’re so rarely seen. So, we spent our time patrolling the river in Julinho’s boat in search of the big cat. We set out after breakfast one morning traveling up the Cuiaba River. We soon stopped to photograph a large flock of black skimmers on the river bank. A little later, as we continued on, we entered a channel where we found sleek, big, playful giant river otters frolicking with each other and catching fish for their breakfast. Otters are seen, but not too often, because they move frequently, depending on the movement of their food source (fish). After observing the otters for awhile, we continued up river. Suddenly, in the midst of some brush and trees on the bank sat a jaguar, partially hidden. We were immediately struck by the immense size of the animal. We didn’t realize it was so big--#3 in size after tigers and lions. We went to the far side of the river bank, stopped the engine, and watched and photographed as the cat sauntered along from time to time and napped a bit. We stayed for 4 hours enraptured by what we were witnessing. We later had 2 more sightings, but just glimpses through the bushes. Imagine miles and miles of river bank overgrown with vegetation, and as you’re moving in a boat, trying to spot a rare animal. Not an easy task!
Other boats of tourists eventually joined in watching the jaguar. During one of the pauses, waiting for the jaguar to reappear, a couple of people in another boat threw their fishing lines in the river. It didn’t take long to catch a fish—a piranha. The teeth looked as ferocious as you would think they would. By coincidence, that was the night we had piranha soup, just not from that piranha. Since it was hot, Julinho routinely would take a dip in the river and asked us if we would like to do the same. No thanks! Not just the piranhas, but I’ve seen all those parasite documentaries about the horrendous things that live in those waters that you can’t even see. I asked if it’s a myth that piranhas attack people. He said pretty much it was a myth, but if you are bleeding you’re advised not to go into the water. OK!!
The caimans here are colossal, able to rival the biggest American alligators. Another Julinho story follows. When you’re out in the river all day, the only toilet facilities available are bushes on the river banks. He needed a break, so brought the boat up on a sandy beach. It was full of caimans, really big ones. A 12-15 footer was just inches away. So, he jumped off the boat and strolled by the thing to go to the bushes. When he came back, he asked us casually if we wanted to go. We seem to be saying ‘no thank you’ a lot lately. As it turns out, caimans are not aggressive like alligators. In fact the big one I mentioned was scared of us and jumped in the water.
Whole families of capybaras (biggest rodent in the world, I think) line the river banks. I guess they’re the MacDonalds of the Pantanal. Jaguars and other predators dine on them. They’re slow and pretty much inert. They also exist in harmony right next to the caimans.
Toward sunset, we watched the waterbirds flying to their roosts in the trees by the river. Thousands of them! They filled the trees to capacity, and the cacophony of squawking and beating wings surrounded us. Is this paradise or what?
One of the goals I had on this trip was to view, observe and photograph the rare hyacinth macaw. I was not disappointed. They frequent the trees around the lodges. To find them, all you have to do is follow their raucous calls to the source, and you’re there. They are actually a hyacinth blue-purple color with a bright yellow ring around their eyes and yellow markings on the sides of their mouths. They’re only found in Brazil, in the Pantanal and possibly in the Amazon. Parrots and parakeets are also common here. There are several species of each, and all are beautiful.
At the last lodge, we made a verbal list of Pantanal animals we hadn’t yet seen. Chief among them were the tapir and the anteater. Just as we came in for the latest shower after a dusty, hot hike, we found out a tapir had been spotted on the lodge grounds. We went to see it. It was about as big as a medium sized pig and had a very pointed snout. Later, we went for a night drive with a big spotlight. Just on schedule, an anteater showed up and we got photos. It wasn’t a giant anteater, but a smaller collared one.
Visit to a River Farm
The last full day on the river, we set out up the river to visit Julinho’s friend. After an hour and a half or so, we arrived at a modest little house on the river bank. Carminho and Maria greeted us, and we ate lunch together. They had rice and an egg with apple juice. We had sandwiches that the lodge made for us. We had a view of a very different lifestyle than we’re accustomed to. They are similar in age to us, so we asked them how long they had been married. When Carminho couldn’t answer, David laughed and thought he would be in trouble with Maria. But, she didn’t know either. They have 5 children and 9 grandchildren. When we asked if they recorded the children’s birthdates in a bible, they said no, and weren’t sure how old they were or when their birthdays were. This seems odd to us, but you have to consider, that to them, everyday is the same. There is no variation in their routine. There’s no Monday to Friday workweek, no TGIF, no weekend activities going out to dinner or to a movie. Just, every day is the same. It’s like being on vacation and not knowing what day of the week it is! Except, their life is not a vacation. It’s a hard scrabble subsistence. They had about 3 rooms in the house. The kitchen was detached. They had a refrigerator, but it could only run the few hours that they used a generator. There was probably not much to put in it anyway. Beans and rice don’t need refrigeration. They get the eggs fresh from the hens, fish from the river, etc. Bananas grow in the yard. Their needs are simple. As we sat eating lunch in the kitchen, I watched as a bat fluttered around and settled back down near the ceiling. Pretty little silver beaked tanagers and red headed cardinals dined on a carcass draped on a tree outside. The chickens squawked in the yard and 2 hungry dogs scampered about. And Renee sweated in the still, pervasive heat and humidity with not a breath of a breeze. Julinho told me frequently that I was melting.
It will be hard to top this very unique and wonderful experience! But, we’ll try. We’ve just arrived in Iquazu Falls, Argentina and will post more later.
Some Pantanal Animals we saw:
Collared anteater, crab eating foxes, red brocket deer, marsh deer, tapir, coati mundis, agoutis, howler monkeys, capuchin monkeys, marmosets, capybaras, caiman, tegu lizards, garden snake (no anacondas), giant river otters, jaguar, iguana.
Some of the Birds:
Snail kite, 3 stork species, several heron species, several kingfisher species, several hawk species, jacana, rhea, caracara, lapwing, great white egret, chacalaca, social flycatcher, 2 species of caciques, several woodpecker species, several species of parrots and parakeets, vermilion flycatcher, several ibis species, limpkin, wood rail, white headed flycatcher, unknown hummingbird, scarlet headed blackbirds, southern screamer, great kiskadee, potoo, orange troupial, dove, spinetail, black skimmers, yellow billed cardinal, silver beaked tanagers, nunbird, saffron finch, toucans.
Caiman - Capybara and Vulture
Collared anteater - Hyacinth Macaws
Jabiru Stork - Jaguar 
Julinho our Guide playing Guitar
