Wildlife wonder!! Prepare yourself, this is a long one.

We arrived in Campo Grande on Saturday evening and were met by Gil our tour operator at the airport. He popped us in a pre-paid taxi to a hotel he uses for tourists on his tour to stay the night before we make the trip into the Pantanal (largest wetland in the world) the next day. The first room the hotel put us in was grim with fury smelly mould halfway up the wall behind the bed and it was in the basement so resembled a prison cell. I politely enquired as to whether a room upstairs would be available and Gil sorted it out immediately. Much to my delight it was much better with air conditioning and and en-suit bathroom (Mum will appreciate my joy here, creature comforts ;-D).

For dinner we went to a busy little open air fast food restaurant on the high street then went back for an early night as we were a bit tired from all the flying.

The next morning we bundled into a mini van with 8 noisy Flemish lads and a couple of English guys Abs and Rasheed who had recently graduated from med school in London. Everyone was really friendly and we had a laugh. The Flemish guys were very very excitable though and talked for the whole 4 hours, somehow we had ended up sitting in the middle of all of them, so we put our music on to drown them out a bit at times :-)!

We switched into a 4x4 truck about 20minutes from the hotel which was right next to one of the main rivers in the Pantanal along a dirt track. Unfortunately the hotel was very full and a couple of the rooms were being repaired so Gil asked if we could sleep in a boat docked at the side of the river which we thought would be fine but it ended up being a cabin with 4 tiny bunk beds and paper thin walls ... Anyway an experience and a world away from the mould ridden prison cell. It also had air conditioning and because it was so tiny it was like Antarctica within about 2 minutes!!

All meals were included in our three day stay and kicked off with a BBQ which was pretty yummy. After lunch we got back in the 4x4 truck and drove for about an hour to a place where the Macaws live. They were absolutely beautiful birds, multi-coloured, huge, blue and green. It was brilliant to see them in their natural habitat flying around. Our guide Bruno was telling us about how they only have one partner for life and if their partner dies they die of depression and if their partner cheats they kill them... Then die of depression!!!! We also saw the second and third largest birds in the world (I forget their names) and alligators. On the way back to the hotel it was dark and Bruno shone a torch on the pools of water next to the track and you could see loads of red alligator eyes glowing above the water, really cool.

The next day we started with Piraña fishing. We were a bit unsure as to whether this would be a success however I managed to be the only one in the group to catch a fish whoop! You can imagine my delight ;-)! However it wasn't a Piraña, I am not sure what it is called but it is a fish that can stay above water for 30 minutes and wiggles around like crazy to get back to the water. Apparently they are not very tasty and I felt a bit cruel watching it wriggle like mad so we returned it to the water, after a photo of course. We also saw an otter swimming around in the reeds.

After fishing we got our swimsuits on and Bruno took us up stream in a boat. On the way we saw Capybara (the largest rodent in the world) sitting by the edge, sort of like a miniature furry hippo! We jumped into the river with some floats and floated our way back to the hotel. It was good fun. In the afternoon we took a boat trip. This was brilliant. We saw toucans, howler monkeys, loads of different types of birds and alligators. We were a small group this time, just Abs, Rasheed, James, Esben and I so we had a laugh and all enjoyed the wildlife spotting. In the evening we walked up the track on our own and got cornered by a herd of cows who seemed to be returning to the farm of their own in the evening. We also walked to the top of the bridge and saw a family of Capybara swimming across the river in the sunset.

Yesterday we got up early to go horse riding. Unfortunately Bruno had got it wrong and we weren't horse riding until 9.30 so having for up at 6am we then sat at the stables for 1.5 hours. I was more than grumpy because I was kept awake in the night by the loudest snoring man in the world in the bunk right the other side of the paper wall from me. As soon as I got on my horse, Shakira, this grumpiness disappeared and we had great fun horse riding through the marsh land. We mainly walked but did some sneaky trotting and a I decided to do a bit of racing with Rasheed's horse near the end to get up front. The weather was fantastic and other than the sore bum it was great.

In the afternoon we jumped on the shuttle bus to Bonito and will be here for two nights for walking and snorkelling in a spring with loads of fish.

Discovery for me on this trip: Caipiana - vodka and lime drink. Amazing. Only need one and I am on top of the world :-)!!

(Sorry I will be late on the photos as haven't had a chance to transfer yet)

Will blog again soon.

Alice
X