The trip to The Pantanal was a short trip in comparisson to the trips weve had so far. We arrived at our accomdation for the next few days, which looked like a sort of hostel/scout camp. Here we might quite a few other young travellers, from around the world.

We met Michael from Australia, Thomas and Kalle from Denmark and a lad from Sweden but I cant remember his name. There were a couple of girls, 1 I think from Belgium. All in all a fun group of people and we all got along.

Our guide for the next few days was a chap called Rodrigo. He was ok but Isla fell out with him. I think he overheard her talking about him but apart from that he was harmless and ulimately wanted us all to see a Jaguar, I guess this would make it a success for him.

The camp had motel style rooms, a games room and a swimming pool, which was so refreshing for how hot and sticky it was here. The alcohol was also very cheap and their paying system was with beads that we purchased from the office.

Whilst staying at the Pantanal we went on a few activities. First we went on the Amazon river. YES the actual Amazon river. We paddled in a large canoe type boat with an engine. We were slowly moving up the river looking for Jaguars, Caymen, Capybara and Toucan. We didnt see a Jaguar but apparently the group before us did. We did however see a massive Caymen that had very evil looking eyes and it was laying on the river bank feet from us looking very angry.

We also saw quite a few Capybara. I had only seen these in capativity and on TV and they looked much bigger in the wild and close up. We also saw a lovely Toucon sat in the tree above us. Everyone wanted me to get the photo for them as I had a zoom lense.

We also went fishing for Piranha. We used sticks with fishing wire and a hook with chunks of meat on. It didnt take long to get bites and it was as simple as dipping the rod in, waiting and lterally pulling the fish out. We caught about 9 and the staff cooked these up for our dinner.

We also went horse riding. This was my first time and it was quite enjoyable. I tried to make the horse go quicker but it was obviously very well trained and kept at a walking pace. It turns out that Kalle was alergic to horses and he went red all over and was covered in hives. We also went out one night for a night time safarai. This was stupid being in The Pantanal as there were millions of mosquitos and everyone got bitten to s***. Not fun at all. You could literally see a swarm of them all around you.

These 3/4 days were very enjoyable, we saw some exotic animals, had lots of fun and made new friends (Thomas/Kalle) who we travelled with to Bolivia.