The Pantanal: 2nd - 5th February

We booked a 3 night 4 day tour with Santa Clara, a company recommended to us by the owner of the hostel in Foz. We were staying at a farm in the Pantanal with activities planned for us.

We got a minibus to the edge of the pantanal at bucas de piranhas, where we then transferred to an open top truck, which we continued our journey in on sand tracks!! Was a bumpy ride - sometimes being thrown out of our seats haha!!! We arrived at Santa Clara and spent the rest of the day in the pool, lounging in the hammocks and chatting to two guys in our group, Dennis & Erik. We also met our guide - Tom. He was nice and informed us of the activities. At dinner, white collared peccary came looking for food - when we didn't give them any, the mother jumped up at the table and tried stealing our plates!! Haha was hilarious!!

Wildlife & Plant trek: Our first activity was a wildlife and plant walk, Tom pointed out different plants and bushes that are used for medicinal purposes, such as eye drops, stomach upsets, hangovers and diarrhoea. He also showed us a plant that was part of the pineapple family, which produced strong fibres to make bracelets and other items. We collected leaves to create our own bracelet back at the farm. On the walk we saw a family of howler monkeys in the trees and an armadillo, which ran straight to its hole!! Back at the farm Tom showed us how to make a pineapple leaf into a bracelet, by breaking down the leaf to reach the fibres, clean the fibres and then create the bracelet.

During lunch that day, we were just sitting by the pool when a guide came running over to let us all know Tom our guide had found an (3 metre long) ANACONDA!!!! Wowow. We all went running! It was awesome - it was the one animal I really wanted to see whilst in the Pantanal, we got so close for photos and were allowed to touch it. After about 10 minutes Tom moved it to a shaded area, but it had wrapped itself around his arm, so I had to help pull it off - woah it was so strong! It took 2 of us to release Toms arm! Mental!!

Piranha fishing: Our second activity was piranha fishing, using bamboo canes and a metal hook. We had a bucket of chopped up raw chicken and we began. Ha my first try and alas..A Piranha!! I thought it was going to be easy... Until it took another 1000 attempts to catch my next piranha haha!!! Annoyingly they ate the food off the hook without getting caught onto it!! Was very frustrating - but the elation of catching one definitely outweighed all that annoyance!! After about 15 minutes we got unexpected visitors at our fishing location... Caimen!! Looking to steal our fish! Tom kept scaring them away but they just laid in the river waiting to pounce!! Was such a bizarre situation!! Luckily they don't attack humans :) after catching enough fish for dinner we left and headed to the camp site where a number of Caimen live in the adjoining river, we took 3 piranhas with us to feed them. We were able to we up really close to them and one by one have our photo taken :) such a mighty animal yet unfazed by humans near them!! The power of their jaws when getting the piranha was immense!! In the evening we sat by the pool eating our piranha that we had caught earlier on in the afternoon. The chefs had gutted and fried them for us, they were so tasty although not that much meat and so many sharp small bones!!

Boat tour: Our third activity was a boat tour along a nearby river. Was so nice being on the water floating along the river. We saw many animals including Caimen, herons, cormorants and South Americas largest rodent - the Capybaras, which was actually quite cute!!! Tom caught another 2 piranhas which he fed to a large Caiman, he made him jump out of the water to catch it, the Caiman, frequently attacked by the piranhas, swam to the shore before eating the piranha. The boat ride was one of the best activities, birds and caiman everywhere you looked!!

Jeep safari & Night safari: our fourth & fifth activity were combined to give us more time out in the wild. We started at 4pm on the jeep safari, we rode down the dirt tracks and walked into the bush where we encountered a family of black howler monkeys (although the females were orange), toucans and deer. Due to the late arrival of the wet season water was scarce in the pantanal, so we headed to a small watering hole which had over 1000 caiman in it, caiman everywhere we looked. Tom explained that before the end of the dry season many of these caiman would have died due to lack of water and food. A study in 2011 found there was an estimated 60 million caiman in the Pantanal!! We sat at the watering hole for 40 minutes watching the caiman and waiting for sunset. Wow it was definitely worth the wait, such an amazing site!! Lots of eyes poking out of the water with an orange sky in the background. We then headed back to the farm in the dark with a spotlight looking for nocturnal animals. We encountered 2 tarantulas, a fox and saw the red eye shine of the caimans eyes.

Horse Riding: Our last activity was horse riding. We were joking at breakfast about who would get the psycho horse... As there's ALWAYS a psycho horse!! Well... I got the psycho horse!!! He was CRAZY!!! All the other horses followed each other at a nice pace, whereas mine, called Bayho, wandered off super slowly.. And then would bolt and go crazy fast - he almost chucked me off several times!! Luckily, Tom swapped my psycho horse with his older more gentle horse PHEW!! I do not like horse riding - sore bum, sore knees and a psycho horse that doe what it wants!! I did not enjoy that activity haha!!!

That afternoon we checked out of Santa Clara and got the open top truck back to bocas de piranhas where we had to wait for the local bus to Corumba. When the bus did arrive, the driver said it was full and would be another 4 hour wait for the next bus (in the middle of nowhere!) so we were resigned to waiting when our of nowhere ANOTHER (empty) bus heading to Corumba came round the corner. So we ran and jumped on. After a 2 hour bus journey we arrived in Corumba. The following day we crossed the border into BOLIVIA!