Up for a 6.30am breakfast and away by 7am the same as yesterday - the cool of the morning is pleasantly refreshing- and it is great driving across the Pantanal watching the bird life start their day. We arrived at the dock, picked up the boat and were off up the river by 8am.
The first new bird was a pied lapwing on a sandbank; the only other new ones today, for this part of the trip, were - an osprey and a turkey vulture.
While we were enjoying the quietness and scenery of the river - Fabricio noticed a group of giant river otters on the bank - a couple were eating fish - they were calling to each other and swimming along the edge - they were going our way so we followed! All of a sudden we noticed them all coming out of the water vertically, squeaking to each other and looking towards the bank - we too looked at towards the bank - nothing there - then Fabricio noticed lying on a branch overhanging the water was a beautiful jaguar. This was a very leopard pose and albeit jaguars sometimes do it, it is relatively rare. After 5-10 minutes we were joined by a group of young Chileans in a boat and together we watched the jaguar come down from the branch move to the waters edge to drink and then walk along the bank coming down to the edge to drink again - we realised there were actually 2 jaguars one was further back but we saw them meet up - Fabricio thought these were two juveniles approximately 2 years old and soon to split up and go there seperate ways.
This was the joy of no radio - no obligation to tell anyone and just a few of us enjoying this special interaction quietly with the jaguar.
After our encounter we kept with the Chilean's boat and followed them up river - as we rounded a bend they signalled that there was another jaguar lying in the beach - sure enough the photo on the blog is what we saw - we then stayed with this jaguar for the next couple of hours - he soon left the growing heat of the beach and walked round to sit under a tree at the otherside of a lagoon - the two boats paddled, no engines, so we didn't disturb him and we sat there watching him for ages- we could see that one eye was very red and injured - it looked as if he might be blind in his right eye. We were then joined by a boat with a radio - they spotted us as they were motoring downstream and came across to see what we were looking at - the message was out and we were at our peek now one of 13 boats - including at the end the BBC! They were all relatively well behaved - lots of long lenses desperate for a shot of a Jaguar as they had all been at the sight of yesterday afternoons mating jaguars but they had not made a reappearnace so we seemingly had the only action on the river!
When the Jaguar had finished his rest we saw him walk round through the undergrowth to emerge in a marshy area and slowly stalk some capybara - early on they were aware if him and stood at the waters edge alarm calling - when he did run it was quite half hearted and they scattered still barking into the water! We then watched as he made his way up the edge of the main river; he was last seen making off away from the river into the undergrowth. With this we headed off to find a shady spot for lunch.......pancakes (a cross between crepes and American pancakes) with cheese - which I found much better and lighter than sandwiches, apple and home made biscuits. After lunch we slowly made our way back to Port Joffre - no more jaguars or otters but I did spot some capuchin monkeys eating fruits and coming to the waters edge to drink.....they clung to a branch with their tails and were almost vertical when they drank. I also got a good photo of a southern screamer - the bird that looks like a goose with a bald head - a bit like a vultures head - a very strange and interesting bird.
We were back at the lodge by 4.20 - it was good to finish earlier as I think today was hotter than yesterday - at least 37 degrees - today we easily finished our 6 bottles of water. So when we were back in our cabin a cold shower was the order of the day. It was also good to have some time to sort out and delete some of the 200+ photos I took today!
7 jaguars in 2 days - we never expected that - and the views today were amazing. I wonder what tomorrow will bring - perhaps the last of the South American big 5 - the tapir?
(the others are - the anteater, maned wolf, giant river otter and of course the jaguar)