The Southern Pantanal

In the last leg of my journey, we visited the northern part of the Panatal--a vast area that becomes wetland during the rainy reason. In this leg, we visited the southern part of the Panatal. This required driving two and a half days across Brazil.

As was the case in my first visit to the Pantanal, weather became a major factor. When we arrived it was a hot and humid afternoon. We could do the afternoon activity of a short boat ride, but the evening night ride (to see the animals active at night) was cut short by a massive thunderstorm. In fact, we just got back when it started to hail. The hail was as large as tennis balls (I have pictures to prove I am not exaggerating.) The tiles of the roof began to break. As a result, all of the rooms began to leak, some quite seriously. Plastic tarps were brought in to cover the top bunks. This left only the bottom bunks available for sleeping, cutting down the number of beds available in half. Some slept in the truck; couples shared a single bed. So we all ended up being able to sleep. (This storm was highly unusual and made the national news in Brazil. This is suppose to be the dry season).

The next day the tiles were fixed and the rooms were cleaned. We were also able to do a full day of activities: taking a jeep tour around this large ranch (cattle and rice are its two major activities in addition to tourism) to view wildlife (mainly birds), go horse backing riding (where we saw a large anteater), and a night safari. On the third day, we went canoeing. After lunch we left to our next destination--Bonito. This took only the afternoon--most of it on dirt road.