At 0630am we left our hotel in Belo Horizante and headed for the airport to catch our flight to Cuiaba - the gateway to the Pantanal. Interestingly the taxi we had from the airport booked at a taxi counter cost 54 Reals whereas the taxi hailed by the hotel cost the standard rate, we now know, of 35 Reals! Nobody would have made out of the first deal - except the company as we paid by credit card - so I put the 19 Real difference down to a misunderstanding and my poor communication - even my trusty lonely planet phrase book couldn't help! Belo airport is new and bright with good shops,some were open and thankfully there was a chemist as we needed toothpaste, shower gel and body cream - all came to about £10 - normal UK type prices especially as the body cream was a special natural one - from the Amazon - variety. We waited a while then joined the queue for Trip airways - an internal airline.......with all new looking planes. Our flight to Cuiaba took off a little late - 2 late passengers, luckily for them, got off as they had got on the wrong flight! We set off for Gioana, for a brief stop, so we thought, and then to Cuiaba. We landed in Gioana,some passengers got off the rest of us sat on the tarmac and waited for the new passengers.....none arrived but over the course of the next hour 3 engineers did - seemingly each one bigger in size and importance than the last. There were announcements in Portuguese which we couldn't understand - eventually when everyone stood up and started getting off we followed - with a little English from the stewardess and my phrase book Portuguese we worked out what we guessed - broken plane, being fixed you will come back when it is sorted! We followed everyone else who were getting briefings from the young Trip staff as we went - you really felt in a vacuum not understanding anything that was said - with French or Spanish I had a sporting chance but Portuguese is very difficult to grasp! When we had finally gone through security and into the departure lounge I asked if someone could explain in English what was happening - a young girl from the Gol airline desk was summoned but told us no more than we already knew --- great to have it confirmed but there's a moral there somewhere - "being in a vacuum doesn't mean you can't work out what's happening outside it" - or something like that !! I decided I should try to tell those collecting us at the other end of our plight and remembering from an earlier call that the international code for Brazil was 55 I phoned our guide, Fabricio, on his mobile as I knew he must be able to speak English.....and fortunately his number was on the list from Wildlife Trails ( our travel company). I was probably the last person he expected to hear so the initial conversation was a little fraught - especially as it transpired he was at home with his sick children and we were to be met by the owners wife and meet up with him later where he lived i.e. the town just before the Transpantaneira turns into a dirt road and the good wildlife viewing starts. Eventually it all fell into place for him - not helped though by me not knowing how to pronounce the city our plane was parked in and having to spell it out! I said I would let him know when it was fixed -and he could tell those collecting us. I sat down expecting to be there for the long haul and toyed with buying an airport internet package. With which there was an announcement and everyone stood up - we guessed we must be boarding - our translation of the body language was right - we were! A quick text to Fabricio to say we were boarding and we left. On arrival in Cuiaba our watches said 1346 but the board in the airport arrivals hall said we landed at 1246 - we thought it must be the old expected time - eventually having seen clocks as were driving out of the City we realised we were in a different timezone and wound our watches back an hour -well Brazil is a big country and of course it covers a couple of time zones!
We were duly met at the airport and the lady and her daughter confirmed that Fabricio had contacted them - so the system worked - as it transpired we were only 90minutes late our scheduled arrival being 1115 am their time!
We set off with a driver through Cuiaba to our rendezvous with Fabricio. Luckily as we met him at a restaurant at the beginning of the unsealed road we were able to have a drink and buy some water - a necessity for the hot and sometimes dusty drive ahead.
We became aware of more tourists on the road - but the real dust monsters were the lorries who service the ranches along the route.
It was not long before we stopped at a typical wetland scene with hundreds of caymen on the banks and lots of water birds - snowy and great egrets, coqui heron, woodstork, limpkin, roseate spoonbill all paddling around eating; a rufescent tiger heron was drying it's wings, alongside were capybara and perched on the posts along the road there were savannah and black collared hawks......the Pantanal experience was beginning.
The journey continued to the hotel with other great sights - monk parakeets nesting in a large communal nest built on a palm tree, a family of South American Coatis searching for crabs in the marshy areas adjoining the road, a greater thornbird coming out of a hornero nest with his twig abode next door and a cattle tyrant fittingly sitting on the back of quite a good looking cow -definitely good looking by comparison to some others we saw.
We also witnessed a true Pantanal scene with cowboys driving cattle further into the Pantanal where the better grass would be -these cattle, as they are reared for beef, were in desperate need of it as they were very skinny. Fabricio,who is one of only 4 local guides i.e. from the Pantanal, said he had worked as a cowboy when he was 15years old and confirmed it was a really tough life -particularly if you were at the back - you got the dust all day long and as you were shouting to keep the cows going it affected your throat - as a result he had to have throat surgery and perhaps not unsurprisingly he much prefers the life of a guide!
We reached our lodge for the night - Rio Claro Lodge at around 5ish - after settling in I tested the wifi -not working - apparently not working in the Pantanal per se - perhaps tomorrow.
However I was blessed with watching a most fantastic sunset - I have seen a few; this was one of the best. I was serenaded - if you can call it that - by 3 guira cuckoos.
Shower and then dinner at 7 - another now familiar buffet style event - plenty of choice for everyone.
Early to be bed - my head hit the pillow at about 8.30pm and that was it - zonked - until about 5am.
The other things we saw today were:
plumbeous ibis (endemic) green ibis, greater black hawk, curassow - strangely for the bird world she is better looking than him, chachalacas, large billed terns, yellow beaked cardinals, red necked seriama, and agoutis.