A unique and unlimited place in its beauty is Pantanal!
It is a journey of adventure and fantasy, a journey in the heart of Brazil in the opposite side of a rain forest and its rivers. The place is magic from any aspect. An immense expanse till where your eyes can reach, there where the sky touches the end of earth, there where sun meets its fate and give a fantastic light on the clouds, the ones which patiently wait their daily dance by the elements of nature.
Luck had helped us to go with “Gil Tours” and indeed things came out just perfect. The first part of the tour was made by bus from Campo Grande to Corumba, in a bus full of people from the around rural areas, people whom just returned from their weekend to their work.
The bus droved us towards the Bolivian borders and the presence of guards was intense. After more then 4 hours we came of the bus.
The place all around had no changes, vast expanse with small and large rural areas with clouds going round, playing their part in the vault of heaven. Not even a small mountain, neither a curve on the road, but only the vast solitude of the place. Exactly there in the middle of nowhere, one track was waiting for us and there we started the second part of our tour, which took another more than 4 hours till our camping place. It was there, in a cross road small market that served a huge surrounding, that we left civilization for the next 4 days, and went into the infinitude of the Pantanal.
The camping was close to a lake, in a small oasis of Palm trees. It was basic, simple, with only the necessary, without electricity or fresh water. There was just a small wood place as a kitchen, a kiosk where we set our hammocks and a closed large tend where we slept, nothing else, besides luxury and comfort has no place here.
We had the real chance to discover the flora and fauna of the area, as the same helped us with its open, huge expanses, savannas and small clump of trees surrounded by lakes.
Daily we walked around 30 Km away from the camping, in order to know and feel the magic of this place, as close as possible. We saw animals and birds, which we could not see even in the rain forest, because of the density of the jungle. Capivara, Monkeys, Tucano, Arara, Jacare, Biguás (cormorant), Tuiuiús (Jabiru), Tatu and we catch piranha (very tasty!). In our every day walk, the water was indispensable, as in the midday the temperature reached 36o C under the shadow, we then went back to the camping for little rest and again back to another direction, searching for more to come back dead tired when the sky turned violet and the whisper of the jungle turned on, around us.
One strange situation, we in the middle of nowhere, with only guide Gabriel, a young in his 22 years old of live, whom knew so well the entire area as the palm of his hand. Ask if Gabriel still there, he must be as he never had traveled out of Pantanal and away from Campo Grande.
The food was regional and very simple, but we honored it immensely after our daily adventure.
(to be continue)