Pantanal, Brazil

We arrived at the border town of Bolivia about 8am and got out across into Brazil pretty sharpish. The Brazilan side of the border was a nightmare and it took us until about 11am to get our entry stamps. At the bus station we booked a tour to the Pantanal so were really saw nothing of Corumba, the Brazilian border town, apart from a moped ride around to get money. We left at 1pm with an English guy called Pete and got the nicest bus ever (reclining seats, toliet with toilet roll and a water machine!) to the Pantanal. At the turn off we had to wait for another group of people to pitch up, they turned out all to be Israeli which was a bit intimidating at first. There were 7 of them and the were very load and rowdy but all in Hebrew. They turned out to be a really nice group and we merged in quite well together and of course they could all speak fluent English. We opted to camp at the resort which meant we slept in hammocks and stayed in a not so posh area with lots of other backpackers. I was really impressed with the set up, great surroundings, great food, loads of hammock and good people. We didn´t have an activity planned for the afternoon so we got straight into beating the Israelis at their own card game!

The next day we went on a jeep ride and then a walk with a cool guide, Alex. We saw monkeys, coatis, capybaras, caiman and loads of beautiful birds:

Coatis:

That afternoon we went horseriding. It was really good fun but there was 15 of us so it was pretty slow going, however, it was relaxing and a good laugh so I very much enjoyed myself:

In the evening, we had a ´night safari` which wasn´t great because we just drove along the road and back again but we did see all the caiman eyes and some more capybaras:

The next morning I got persuaded to get up at 5am to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful but I got bitten all over my legs within 10mins so I wasn´t thrilled! We did see an anteater though which was exciting.

The morning activity for the next day was a boat ride. We really didn´t see much but it was fun and half way through we all jumped in the river and had a swim - a rather scary prospect when you have just seen a caiman swimming in the same place!

A Capybara:

That afternoon we had another walk on which we saw more of everything:

Female Howler monkey:

Sunset:

On our final morning we went pirana fishing. I caught two piranas and one sardine which was good but it was pretty hard because they were so quick to nick the meat and leave you with an empty hook. Afterwards we had them for lunch!

We then got the bus to Campo Grande and immediately got a very expensive but very safe and comfy nightbus to Foz do Iguaçu in South Brazil.