hello everyone! So to get to pantanal we spent the best part of two days on the sunshine bus!! We only ever travel in the day so wherever we ended up at dusk, we stayed the night, which in these instances was at two truckers service stations! The first one we mastered the art of erecting a tent on a gravel carpark. The next we had the luxury of grass. I actually really enjoyed it, despite the pain, it was such an adventure. The roads gradually turned into dirt tracks and we steadily drove over some very rickety, creaky, wooden bridges. When we reached the lodge, we really were in the middle of nowhere. On the day of arrival we took a boat down the river to do some wildlife spotting. We saw loads of capybara, toucans, howler monkeys and camen. We then stopped the boat and got out into the river - WHERE WE?D JUST BEEN SPOTTING CAMEN!! Some people(some would call them idiots) swam - i just paddled. We sailed back at sunset - it was beautiful. Afterwards we drove to the farm, where we spent the next 3 nights sleeping in hammocks -I want one! They are so comfortable. On the first day we went horse riding in the morning. through forests and bogs. Had never done it before but had a great time and the horses were so well trained. In the afternoon we went on a wildlife treck and saw, among other things, an armadillo. Its so wierd seeing these creatures just wondering around and i think they?re all on steroids - you should have seen the size of some them. There was a cricket bigger than my hand, ( i know ive got small hands but trust me it was huge!!) During the stay i also went piranha fishing. I Ended up catching 8. It was so funny. We had to get them onto the boat to kill them but they were wiggling all over the place, snapping their jaws! One jumped out the lake and hit Gem on the head! The only downfall here was that we were plagued with bugs and bazaarly, toads which were the source of many pranks in the showers. By night we sat around the campfire singing and playing games. Some people revealed suprising talents, one guy rapped vanille ice - ice ice baby in its entirity - hillarious. I found out i was crap an limbo(it was my curved spine -nothing to do with the red wine!) I loved it here tho, this is what its all about. All the locals have been so friendly. One guy showed me how to make a necklace using a knotting technique - I was in my element. will be sad to leave here but am ready to move on - next stop, Bonito! x