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.

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)

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.