We arrived in Campo Grande 2 hours ahead of schedule (6:30 local time, 7:30 Iguacu time), so it was pretty lucky that Alex happened to be awake and a sign saying the name of the city happened to be outside the window. I took some waking, but we made it off the bus in time. At the station there was a woman from another tour group to what we were using who happened to know I was called Hebecca (Portuguese accent), who turned out to be friends with Gil - the man we booked with and who seems to run everything in town. We got a taxi to his hotel and were expecting a rest day in Campo Grande before heading the the Pantanal tomorrow. Gil, however, had other plans and ployed us with breakfast and a shower and convinced to leave for the Pantanal that day on the basis that we´d get a private room for the cost of a dorm. So despite Campo Grande being the jumping off point for the Pantanal´´ it still took over 4 hours in a minibus to reach our lodge.

As we set off we met the rest of our group, which included a 6-piece Bristolian family, complete with Bristolian accent, and our Swiss guide Martin. Now my track record with the Swiss is´t great, and didn´t much improve when Martin guided me in the men´s toilet before we departed.

The lodge is right by the river about 8km along the dirt ´Pantanal ´Park Road´- the sole road running through the Pantanal. I immediately grabbed my binoculars and went out exploring - the place is absolutely swarming with exotic birds, hawks, lizards and butterflies. In the afternoon we went on a jeep safari (a pick-up with two benches back to back). We saw lots of caiman and birds and at least 3 crab-eating foxes. On the way back they turned the engine off and the sound of the frogs was ridiculous. The stars were pretty amazing too.

Buffet for dinner! Including rice pudding for dessert. Alex and I commenced a game of travel-scrabble and had a pretty early night getting to sleep with frogs almost as noisy as Posh´s riff guitar!

Day 9 - buffet for breakfast! Including cake, which seems to be normal breakfast food in Brazil. When in Rome...

We got a boat up-river to another lodge and did a spot of piranha fishing, where we subtley tried to explain to the Bristolian children that the first rule of fishing is patience. No such luck. Then we took canoes down river and got up really close to the caiman, monkeys and (more) birds. On the way back to the lodge we saw a family of capybaras swimming across the river.

Buffet lunch! And got swarmed by bees again. In the afternoon we took the boat downstream and had a pretty successful time. We saw our first toucan and also a family of giant otters, which were really cool. They kept popping their heads out of the water and grinning at us, and then submerged and did the same a bit further away. After dark, on the way back Alex and I sat at the back of the boat singing various ´tracks of our years´, including Savage Garden and Natasha Bedingfield... there aren´t many people I could travel with who´d harmonise so well. There was also a fish versus frog debacle when Alex and a Quebecois girl saw something jump out of the water but couldn´t agree what... Alex doesn´t argue often, but this girl was asking for it.

During our buffet dinner I annihalated Alex with the conclusion of our first game of scrabble!

Day 10 - early morning jeep ride along the Pantanal Park Road and a hike into the park where we saw howler monkeys, toucans, mackaws and an emu. Martin even managed to take me off piste in search of a woodpecker he could hear! Having considered that the first rule of fishing is patience, I was pretty keen to let the Bristolians know that the first rule of spotting wildlife is being bloody quiet. On the truck ride back I ended up sat at the back with one leg outside of the pickup since there was no space for all my body inside the pickup. By the time we got to the lodge I was absolutely filthy from picking up all the dust from the vehicle! There was no time for a swim in the river (there´s piranhas in there anyway) so we had a shower, enjoyed our last buffet lunch and commenced our journey back to Campo Grande. Our journey started at 2pm in the afternoon, where we took the pickup 8km as far as the main (asphalt road). Then Alex and I were told to get the public bus back to Campo Grande since everyone else were going to Bonito and we didn´t justify a minibus. Martin told us that the minibus shuttles were hot and unreliable anyway. After 30 minutes of waiting by the road he had a call from Gil which resulted in Martin declaring that he too was coming to Campo Grande and we needed to wait for him to go back to the lodge to get his things before we could go. Apparently we would now be going in the minibus shuttle, which curiously was kept running the hour we were waiting to leave. At 4pm we actually started the drive back to Campo Grande and with no aircon, we were all getting wind burn from having the windows open. We picked up 3 more Brazilian travellers on the way, as well an an Irish girl named Anna.

In Campo Grande Martin was just about toget out fo the bus when I happened to ask him when we would be given our bus tickets to Rio (that Gil was booking for us), and he then told us that the minibus driver had them, but when he had been given them I have no idea, particularly since we weren´t supposed to be travelling with him anyway! Once Martin had left the minibus stopped at some lights and as it pulled away, made an almighty clunk and ground to a halt. So Martin was right. Time was getting tight for our next bus and I had little faith that whatever the driver was doing under the bonnet would bring the vehicle back to life. At this point there was a pretty iconic moment as we all sat there in the back of the van, a cover of Í have a dream´playing full blast and a view of a hooker stood on a street corner out of the window... not the place you want to break down in! To my amazement he got it going again, so off we went to the rodoviaria - 30 minutes to use the toilet and buy a burger before boarding our bus to Rio!