Pantanal

The pantanal is in a very desolate location — the nearest large town is hundreds of kilometers away. As a result, the night time viewing conditions are simply the most fantastic I have seen in my life. On a clear night, the sky here is primordial. Having no light pollution doesn’t mean just that you can see a lot of stars — it turns the night sky into a psychedelic astronomical aquarium you can spend hours and hours looking at.

Even camping in desolate regions in North America does not compare! I have never truly experienced the night sky before this! It’s sort of sad in a sense as after being here, I realized that most modern people will never experience this, or understand how much our atmospheric polution has changed the world, and how radically different life for people just a 100 years ago must have been.

My friend and I went to Pantanal while touring south america because we were told that you could see more animals than the amazon and it was less overrun by tourists.

We stayed with friends of friends of friends of friends in Campo Grande, but didn’t really see any tours taking people anywhere so just paid some fisherman to take us up the river in their motorboat. It was quite peaceful swamplands, but the only animals I remember seeing were the giant catfish some fisherman we passed had caught, and birds.

Based on the other entries here it sounds like an organised tour was the way to go. People here didn’t seem to see the area as worthy of tourism, despite the great attractions that they had, so they didn’t really know what to show you.

Near pantanal is a place called Bonito that we went to and went on a rubber inflatable boat down waterfalls and snorkelling in a river with incredibly clear water, This was well deserving of the name Bonito.

Traveled here for two weeks with a guide and a driver. Stayed at a farm a couple of hours’ motorboat ride up a river, where we were served piranja soup. Did some horseback riding there, which was fantastic. I didn’t think there could be so many cayman crocodiles in the rivers, but there they were.

This place is amazing! The wildlife, the scenery, the climate. You have to have a go at piranha fishing (wading out waist deep and dangling a bit of meat of a small line and rod. Awesome. They taste good too. I would recommend Ecological Expeditions here, they gave us a great three day tour.