Being Bill Oddie

We left Curitiba bound for Campo Grande, one of several Brazilian starting points for a trip to the Pantanal. These are the country´s ´wetlands´where low mountains and an abundance of converging rivers make for excellent conditions and a strange sounding biological soup in the water providing for a host of animals and birds. The wet season leaves the area flooded, we were visiting in the dry season when despite being winter daytime temperatures soar into the 30´s and combined with very little rain there are fewer water patches for animals to drink at theoretically giving us a higher chance of seeing some wildlife.

After the 14 hour bus journey we were pleased to see our hostel from the bus station and even more happy to find out that it was connected to the tour agency we had been looking at online. Within an hour of arriving we had settled in and were booked on a three day tour due to begin the following day.

Campo Grande is one of the closest towns to start a tour from but despite this it still took almost 6 hours to reach the southern Pantanal. The first indication that the wildlife sightings would be plentiful occured at lunch when along with the usual bugs and flys the driver pulled a hummingbird from the bus grill and we spotted a toucan moments later.
When we eventually arrived close to the lodge we were staying at the bus driver directed us and 2 English girls to the jeep of a crazy Brazilian named Tony who sported a scarey looking tattoo of a Victorian child and would take us the rest of the way down the bumpy dirt road. Within minutes Tony had pointed out a patch of water with over 100 alligators (or Caimen as they are called here) at this point we were really excited but by the end of the three days we had seen so many they had become like pigeons.

The lodge we stayed at though basic was peaceful, quiet but for the call of birds and the flowing river and with its own capivara that had been orphaned and adopted by the lodge, it was so tame it could actually be stroked. Dinner that night and every other was rice and beans (not as good as the ones we had in Curitiba) before we got an early night ready for the following day´s 7.30am start.

Our first activity involved joining with another group consisting of Germans, Brazilians, Canadians and English and heading out in an open sided jeep to spot animals from the roadside. Our guide Louis seemed quiet almost shy in comparison to the other group´s guide Mario, but what Louis lacked in ability to imitate animals he made up for with amazing eyesight that could hone in on any animal in the vicinity leading Matt to christen him the hawk. Time after time the van would stop and we would all leap out to see an amazing number and variety of animals and birds; giant storks that were so big they needed a runway to take off, giant otters (bigger than matt), alligators, kingfishers, toucans and many more.

After a few hours the van stopped and the 2 groups split to walk through the forested area. Us and the two English girls followed closely behind Louis who was dressed for the occasion in a safari hat, camouflage jacket and huge boots, brandishing a huge foot long knife in one hand poised and ready for action. From the offset a distant loud roaring could be heard, which one girl described as sounding like a T-Rex, it wasn´t long before we saw the small howling monkeys responsible for the noise.

The walk lasted a few hours and we thought Louis seemed unsteady on his feet but it was because he never stopped scanning the trees for animals, suddenly he would stop, spin around with his fingers to his lips and then beckon us closer pointing at a nearby animal, it would then take us a good 10 or 15 seconds to see what he had spotted.....we would have seen nothing without him!

Throughout the walk we saw an armadillo, a red back deer, a pair of beautiful bright blue macaws, coatis and no end of howling monkeys. Arriving back to the jeep it became clear we had got the better walk, the other group were filthy having walked through muddy water and hadn´t even seen anything (cue one woman demanding to Mario that she too wanted to see an armadillo). The return journey proved to be as successful with us seeing a giant anteater, false face water snake (surely not its real name) 3 rheas, an iguana and loads of birds.

After another early night we were ready for day 2´s boat trip, according to Louis this would be our best chance to see a jaguar as it stalked its would be prey drinking the water (we didn´t see one). An hour or so downstream having seen numerous animals along the way we stopped at an alligator surrounded sandbank and gingerly climbed out as Louis dissapeared into the bushes returning with bamboo fishing rods for us all. After seeing two French guys quickly catch fish I decided to have a go, got a bite straight away and hauled out a piranha which i then fed to a waiting alligator. We have done some unusual things on this trip and I would imagine that this is one that we are pretty unlikely to do again. It must have been beginners luck as I didn´t catch another, as for Matt he did a great job of feeding the fish - the only one he managed to catch being the 'one that got away´.

The afternoon activity of horse riding was fairly sedate and at a nice relaxed pace through the pantanal until the guide would appear riding barefoot and lassoing his whip, a quick smack on the horse´s behind and they would gallop off for a few seconds before returning to their snails pace....which suited us! Our night walk after dinner wasn´t particularly exciting, though we were accompanied by Stuart as we had taken to calling the capivara, his Portugese name being too hard for us. Too many people, too many torches and too much noise scaring off any possible animals.

Part of the tour involved seeing the sunrise and after talking to Louis about it we arranged to meet at 4.30am. I have little doubt he said such an early time to try put us off going as the following morning, even after walking 45 minutes the sky hadn´t even began to change. Eventually night became day until at 6.15am the sun put in an appearance, it was like no sunrise we have ever seen, a bright pink ball that didn´t hurt our eyes to look at. Stuart hadn´t joined us this time but the lodge´s dog Priscilla had, on the way back an owl suddenly swooped down noisily heading straight for the dog though narrowly missing it, the reason soon became clear as the owl´s baby had fallen from the nest and the dog was sniffing around it, sadly the nest was too high to help and every time we passed the tree for the rest of the trip the mother seemed to be in distress.

Strangely after catching piranha and getting up close with alligators the final days scheduled activity was tubing down the river, we turned it down and instead spent the day fishing and making the most of the sunshine. A new batch of guests had arrived including a girl who actually looked like a capivara (so much so that we had both thought it) she had no problems leaping into the piranha/alligator infested waters leading us to believe she was a shaved relative of Stuarts. I had never fished before but found it relaxing despite Andre an 11 year old German/Brazilian doing his best to ruin it.....as a vegetarian he wouldn´t touch the beef we were using as bait or the fish themselves (though he had no objection to catching them - mainly managing to hook them through the eye - and then whacking them on the side of the nearby moored boats as he clumsily brought them in) meaning that each time he lost his bait or caught one he would hold out the hook/fish and stare at us until one of us helped him. This time I had more luck catching 6 fish the final of which was a large piranha and even Matt caught two small catfish.

After a bus back to Campo Grande, the first hot shower in 3 days and a meal with no rice and beans we settled in for (yet another) early night ready for the following day´s 23 hour journey to Rio. Knowing it´s the last epic trip is bittersweet as it signals the beginning of the end though is a city we are both really excited about.

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