Hammocks are highly underrated. Sitting here in the heat of the Pantanal, swinging in my hammock in the shade of a tree, listening to hundreds of different birds sing their song; life is good. Initially we planned 3 nights; with the bugs and the heat i thought that might even be pushing it. Turns out we loved it here at pousada Santa Clara and have squeezed an extra night in.

The Pantanal is the biggest wetland in the world and home to a huge array of flora and fauna. We're in the southern Pantanal in south west Brazil, not too far from Campo Grande. Apparently 8 million head of cattle graze the grasslands of the area making the Fazenda (ranch) owners very rich. We are staying at the guesthouse of one of these, Santa Clara. We came for the super elusive Jaguars, unfortunately they remained just that, but it would be silly not to leave something for when we return to visit the Amazon anyway.

It's hot here, really hot. Sweating is an involuntary action. Luckily there is plenty of downtime to utilize the bar, pool and hammocks between morning and afternoon activities or the amazing Buffett lunch and dinner. The place is so peaceful even with all the macaws flying and squawking about. To make it even more exotic, instead of (or as well as anyway) pet dogs they have two pet Pecciarys (kind of like pigs) who just roam around hoping some food might come their way, or dig holes to lie in. Much like my labrador, Shari.

Its about a 5 hour drive to the property from campo grande. I'm not proud to say I was excited by the amount of roadkill, which usually upsets my bleeding heart. Armadillo, giant anteaters, anteaters, caiman and other unidentified critters. To me it all bode well for some amazing animal spotting. Closer to the property we started seeing breathing animals, including one of the rarer animals of the Pantanal, a big horse like deer. Plenty of caimans too. Ick.

We had decided to stay in a dorm to save money and meet some cool people. As soon as we walked in it was evident our roommates, two couples, were douche bags. All 7 beds had crap all over them, they were nice enough to free up 2 beds for us after I asked. I have suspicions on their nationality but I won't share my travel prejudices with you. Bad first impression, it gets even better.

Most people get to bed by 12ish as your up early in the morning. When we headed to bed one of the guys asked if we could keep the door unlocked as they were staying up late, no problems. From 3:30am - 4:30am he and his mate proceeded to constantly come into the room turn the light on, have some chats, rustles around in their bags and generally be a*******s.

Things got even better towards the end of this delightful time when the mate walked in, turned the light on and stood butt naked about a meter in front of me and just wouldn't move. Guess how excited I was to have a willy dangling in my face at 4am. I crawled into the corner of my bed, hugged the wall and thought of happier times. In the morning I woke to one ugly man balls up, and another arse up, no clothes, no bedding. I marched to reception and explained my moral issues with having to sleep in a room of unattractive naked men. They moved us to a private room; I remain scarred.

The rest of our time was idyllic. We rode horses through the jungle (this time mine kept trying to bite me), went on boat trips, did plenty of wildlife spotting in the back of trucks, enjoyed night safaris and walked through jungles in 100 degree heat. We saw monkeys, cappibarra, an anaconda, deers, caiman, snakes, huge tarantulas, armadillo, raccoons and lots of birds. Generally birds bore me, but these birds were terrific; various hawks and vultures, toucans, macaws, tiny hummingbirds, huge storks and many other birds of all the colors of the rainbow.

One of the stranger things we did here was piranha fishing. I have actually never been fishing; I don't like killing things, plus my attention span is somewhat lacking so I wasn't super confident. Turns out I'm a crap fisher woman with the piranhas constantly outsmarting me, leaving my hook meatless but not hooking themselves. I did manage to get one sucker, he fell off the hook on the bank, everyone yelled at me to grab it. As if I was going to touch a fish by choice, let alone one with sharp, pointy teeth. I also managed to hook a caiman, he was nice enough to let go. All his mates watched metres from us on the riverbank, they got fed the catches that were deemed to small.

Now we head to the coast, Paraty. To get there it's about 1 hour in the back of a truck, 4 in a mini van, a 15 hour overnight bus followed by a 6 hour bus. Bet you're all super jealous. It's going to stink but then it's 2 weeks of beach time!!!!