We took a 4 day trip to Pantanal from Campo Grande with the budget tour operator Ecological Expeditions. They had a very good reputation and were highly recommended by both Rough Guide and Lonely Planet and are almost the only tour operator that fit our low budget who operate from Campo Grande. They have their own campsite along the only road that goes into the Pantanal from the south. We were taken there by a minivan together with an Australian and an Israeli couple and an Italian guy. The drive was 5-6 hours long, along which we did not see many settlements. We had to change cars when we reached the dirt road that leads into the Pantanal. Basically all the lodges are located along the road as this is the only dry area. Along the road there are fences because the whole Pantanal is private land used for farming, and the cattle is probably the second most commonly seen animal after the mosquito. There are tons and tons of mosquitoes there that are DEET-resistant, so one cannot escape them. The good news is that they are not as dangerous as in Africa or in the the cities, as there is no malaria or Dengue fever there. Although our sleeping facilities had mosquito nets around them, these had holes, so at night we got bitten. Bitten, many may times... We could not put on long sleeved clothes either, because it was quite hot even at night. So we could chose what should not let us sleep, the heat or the mosquitoes. A further insomniac factor was the hammock we slept in. Strangely, after almost a full month of sleeping in hammocks on the Amazonian boats, now I just could not get a rest. In spite of these inconveniences, we decided to stay an extra night, mainly because I was fascinated by the wildlife. Being a city freak, Kaarel would have preferred to go to Sao Paulo, but actually it did not take too long to convince him to stay a bit longer. Could it be that he is turning into a wildlife fan?
Our guide was Sandro, who – by surprise – spoke very good English and knew a lot about animals. To me the most impressive skill is that of an ornithologist, who can tell in a second what species that small, gray sparrow-like bird is that just whooshed through the air 50 meters above you. And Sandro could do that. So we were in good hands. On the first day we arrived late to the camp, so we did not do anything that evening, but committed ourselves to the rice and beans and spaghetti dinner and I have tried to prepare myself physically and psychologically that this is going to be my lunch and dinner while there. And it was.... only the breakfast brought some variety with bread and jam.
On the second day we had a full day of safari. We set out by car and drove deeper into the Pantanal. The drive was adventurous, as we were sitting on the roof of a truck and had to duck every few seconds to avoid the branches chopping off our heads. But the view was much better from up there and there was a lot to see. The landscape was very impressive, with the flooded land all around and with the bushes, flowers and the cloud-dotted blue sky that was reflected in the smooth water surface. To maintain the natural flow of the water, there were bridges almost every kilometer. These were the places where we had a better view to the water and the caimans swimming around in it. As our trip took place at the end of the rainy season, there was not much land left dry, so it was not a good time to see terrestrial mammals, like jaguars. Sandro claimed that these animals migrate to the north this time of the year. I have not heard of that, so I was a bit disappointed to find out, that exactly at the spot where one's chances are the highest to see a jaguar in the wild, we probably will not see one... Luckily, the amount of other animals we saw, mainly that of birds, compensated somewhat for this. I was very much impressed by the huge Jabiru stork, the symbol of the Pantanal, that I have never seen before. It resembles a marabu stork with its bold head, size and body structure, but has a weired, swollen rubber-like naked black and bright red neck that looks like a stuffed stocking.
Being a mammal fan, for me the highlight of the animal spotting was the six-banded armadillo, we discovered in the bushes. We found an other one digging for insects, but we only saw the earth flying out of its burrow and a bit of the tail and unfortunately did not wait for him to come out after it filled its belly... An other cool thing to see was the capybara, the largest rodent in the world. We watched them sunbathing, swimming, grazing, even saw a family with babies. To Kaarel's disappointment, they were not eaten up by caimans... It was not less exciting to watch coatis running around on the trees above us, making funny noises (not less impressed by these creatures, now Kaarel wants a pet coati...) or to follow a bush deer for a few hundred meters as it was grazing, apparently not disturbed by the fact that 10 people were chasing him with cameras. Once in a while we saw a few dark shadows move around in the tree canopy; black howler monkeys. The light colored females usually disappeared quite quickly, only the black male was left behind, inspecting us suspiciously. At such occasions it was difficult to decide who is watching whom. At other occasions we spotted beautiful bright colored hyacinth macaws or a group of toucans with their enormous orange bills. These animals we spotted during our walking safaris when we stopped with the truck on the road and climbed over a fence. These areas were mostly forested, often only by palm trees, not good for any kind of human use. As everywhere, we met a lot of cows during these walks and encountered the cruelty of this wet environment by the many cattle skeletons scattered around everywhere. It is indeed quite a harsh way to raise cattle, as there is not much grass, but only bushes and swamp- and water-plants and nobody seems to look after the farm animals. They just put the young bulls there on the farms and let them grow. The unfriendly conditions are clearly visible on these bulls, as they are more like skeletons themselves than slaughter-ready fearsome meat masses. During one of our car safaris we saw how a long river of these skeletons were herded out of the Panatnal for fattening in other areas by the gauchos, the local cowboys. As our sophisticated European breeds would not survive these conditions, they keep a more resistant Indian cattle breed.
On one of the walking trips we actually went into the water. We walked for ca. half an hour barefoot in thigh-high water. With every kind of plants twisting around our feet and caimans and piranhas lurking around every bush in front of my imaginative eyes, I found myself in one of my nightmares. I could not even clutch onto Kaarel, as I usually do in such situations and endure his jokes about pinching me under water faking a caiman or piranha attack, as during that walk he was fishing for piranhas with an other group.
Catching these reputable predators is the top attraction for many people who come to the Pantanal. Nevertheless only a few dare to go as far as trying to take out the hook from their mouth themselves and actually their meat is not that good, unless fried hard, because it is full of bones. The fun is that it is not a boring kind of fishing when one sits for hours and waits for the catch, but soon after one lowers the bait into the water the piranhas grab it and so one can catch many in a short time. However, one still has to pick the right spot, where there are many piranhas and not like Kaarel's unlucky group who did not catch anything. Of course it was not their idea to go fishing at the river right next to the camp, but it was the fact that forced them to stay there that one of the two cars we could use in the camp got stuck in the mud and the other one took my group out for the walking safari. Interestingly it never occurred to anybody that a 4 wheel drive might be useful to transport the visitors in the mud-covered Pantanal or alternatively that the road could be fixed, so that the trucks won't get stuck every single day. Interestingly, these incidents only happened at varying parts of the ca 300 m long road within the campsite and not on the main road. Perhaps there was a weired enjoyment of the camp staff in these daily mud wrestlings that prevented them undertaking any action. We could not quite share this kind of enjoyment in getting stuck in the mud, because it either meant that our activity got canceled, like our dawn spot-light safari, or was less fun, like the piranha-less piranha fishing or it meant that we had to walk back to the camp in the mud in flip flops... It has to be added though, that on our last day the horse riding was probably only added to the activities because there was no vehicle to take us out of the camp. Luckily the horses were very calm, actually quite lazy, so I was not too worried about the possible consequences of Kaarel's lack of riding abilities. He could even stay in the saddle while we were galloping and seemed to enjoy it that much that he said it was the highlight of our Pantanal visit for him.