Hannah's Adventures Abroad: December 2006

A Crazily Amazing Trip to the Pantanal, Matto Grosso do Sul

A little less than two weeks ago, I finished up school in Brazil. Because I had some time left after school before the family got here, I decided to go travel to a part of Brazil that wasn’t similar to anything I had seen yet. I had various friends who throughout their time in Brazil had gone to visit the Pantanal, in the state of Matto Grosso do Sul. So my friend Katherine and I decided to go to the Pantanal as our end of school trip. People say that the Pantanal is similar to the Amazon, but much easier to spot animals in because it is not nearly as forested as the Amazon. Also, we went at the beginning of wet season, and while it was not flooded as it usually is at the peak of wet season, it did rain a bit everyday. But, that never stopped us from doing every activity and usually the sky was gorgeous and blue after the rain had passed.

So! Here is the story of our journey to and from the Pantanal!
We decided to fly to the Pantanal because it’s a 22-hour bus trip there from Rio. By the end of the trip we kind of wished we were bussing back, but I’ll get to this later. So, Sunday morning Katherine and I went to the domestic airport and boarded a flight to Sao Paulo. From there we took a flight to Campo Grande one of the largest cities in the state of Matto Grosso do Sul. As soon as we arrive at the airport, the tour company owner Gil somehow discovered us. He was incredibly cheerful and loves Americans and speaking English because he used to “make good money” living in Michigan and Florida teaching and playing Soccer. He often said, “Man I left my heart in the US, MAN!”. He often referenced Billy Joel, loved Rodney Dangerfield, and the film Scent of a Woman. He told us there was another American women coming on the trip with us whose name he kept changing to both Sarah and Sharon. He took us to his tacky office in the bus station adorned with bamboo, fake toucans, and 10 year old pictures of Gil, himself somewhere in the wildness. Once we settled the bill he told us he was taking us back to his house to have lunch and relax, before our 3:00 bus ride into the Pantanal. We got to his house, which was quite nice, which lead me to believe he did make good money playing soccer in the US. We grabbed some plates of lunch and proceeded to meet Sarah, our new travel companion and friend. She was from Kansas and was on the 3rd month of her 6th month back packing travels in Brazil. She was traveling 3 months alone and then 3 months with a friend who was coming down to meet her. I was super impressed that a 27-year-old girl with no knowledge of Portuguese or Spanish had ventured to Brazil to travel alone for 3 months! Sarah ended up hanging out with us the entire time in Pantanal and it was great hanging out with her! So, at 2:50 Gil took us to the bus stop and boarded us on a bus saying it would stop at a certain place in the middle of the Pantanal and someone would be there to pick us up. We didn’t really ask questions, figuring it would all work out, and it did. So within a 5-hour bus ride that slinked out of civilization my cell phone signal went to zero and more and more people on the bus seemed to get off at a completely deserted bend in the road. At one of the pit stops, we got a bit worried that we had no idea where we were going off so I asked the bus driver and he said “Burraco das Piranhas—não deve preocupar” which was the random name of a stop and the fact that he told me not to worry—so I didn’t. We kept chugging along in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly the bus stops, the driver gets out his seat, turns to me and says “você—aqui.” (you—here!). So, Katherine, Sarah, and I get off the bus in the middle of nowhere. All of a sudden a guy comes up to me and mumbles “Gilstour..?”. Seeing as we were the only people who got off the bus, and these were the only people there picking up, I figured it was a match and we piled in their truck and rode off into the dark wilderness. They didn’t really talk to us, and I figured they probably didn’t think we spoke Portuguese. After about 30 minutes of an incredibly bumpy and slow, stick-shift truck ride, we get to the pousada. The pousada is entirely on stilts, which is to prevent water and animals from being a problem. We are greeted by a nice quiet woman, taken to our rooms and then brought back the dining hall. We have a nice meal of rice, beans, salad and spaghetti. A man comes up to us and tells us that he is our guide, named Marcello, and that tomorrow morning breakfast would be at 6:30 and we would have a boat trip at 7:30. After dinner the three of us headed back to our rooms and were greeted by frogs and toads both outside our room and in our bathrooms. Awesome! Katherine and I got into our beds, said goodnight to Sarah through our paper-thin walls, hoped the frogs wouldn’t attack us and went to sleep.
The breakfast was simple and consisted of bread, butter, jam, and enormous pieces of pineapple and watermelon. After breakfast we gathered our stuff and went to meet for the boat tour. It seemed a bit rainy so we all had raincoats on. Marcello handed us all “bum bum cushions” for the boat, which were huge pieces of foam to sit on. We boarded the tiny motorboat and traveled down the river. We spotted tons of Capybaras, Howler Monkey and Caimans (which are types of alligators which are smaller and don’t eat humans). Believe it or not, it was on this first activity where I embarrassed myself the most on the trip. We had stopped the boat really close to some capybaras, and a short distance away I was SURE I saw a small animal on a branch. I yelled at Marcello that there was a small mammal over there!! 2 times after that he said I CANT HEAR YOU, and after I screamed it two times more AND was sure I saw this small mammal through binoculars, he told the boat driver to go towards what I was talking about. Throughout the entire time this was happening, there were some English people on our boat and I kept saying, “I’m not crazy, it’s RIGHT THERE!” As soon as we arrived there, I realized there was indeed no small mammal and in truth there was only a small piece of wood that was textured with lines. As soon as I saw this, I said, “fugiu!” (“It fled”) and I wanted to dive into the piranha-infested waters to escape my embarrassment. Later, as we became friends with Marcello and talked more, he explained to me that he was saying he couldn’t hear me because he knew there was no animal there and was trying to get me to stop saying I saw it. Nonetheless, from then on, we would randomly insert “fugiu!” into conversations and laugh at my animal spotting incompetence (WHICH I REDEEMED LATER!) Here are pictures from the boat trip!:

After the boat trip, I took a nap and then got up for lunch. We were told that later in the afternoon we would be horseback riding which I was SOOOO excited about, because as I later proved in the afternoon I am a master with horses! So we rested a bit and then saddled up for horse riding. I have no digital pictures from horse riding because we thought it could rain and I didn’t want the camera to get wet or broken, so you will just have to picture my fantastic stories. So, as we get on our horses, we are told that we will be able to gallop once we get on a road, but not in the wilderness because there are too many puddles and branches. So as we start riding I see that my horse is terribly stubborn. It continues to fall back because it keeps stopping to eat! I keep yelling “Stop EATING!” but oddly the horse doesn’t respond. I figure I will let her, Perna Longa (Long Leg) eat a bit so she will have the energy to run later. We walk along and enjoy the gorgeous pantanal. At one point we are walking on this farm with this gorgeous, tall, green grass and all the horses stop to eat it. Marcello proceeds to casually say in his thick Brazilian accent, “This is not our farm…they could shot us…” Apparently this grass is great for cattle raising and horses, but because there didn’t seem to be any cattle or ranchers out today, Marcello said we should let our horses eat a bit. While I was letting my horse munch on his gourmet grass, I had a brilliant idea when I saw a thin long dead branch almost falling off a tree. I grabbed it, tore the dead leaves off of it, as soon as we started walking again, I gave my horse a teeny tap on the tuckus, and SUDDENLY she knew who was boss! Every time I wanted to walk, run, stop, or turn around she did EXACTLY what I wanted her to do. At one point, one of the English boy’s horses wouldn’t move, so I trotted back to him, hit his horse in the ass, and it magically moved at the perfect pace! As I was now at the front of the pack, I spent some time talking to the other cowboy riding with our group. He was really curious about the US and asked a lot of questions about me, animals and nature in the US. Finally the group started moving again and we got onto a road. I asked Marcello if I could run and he said yes. I gave my horse one little tap and we were off, first trotting and then galloping at Cowboy speed!! I was always at the front of the pack and had a fantastic time galloping through the Pantanal on Perna Longa. After what I later learned was an extremely painful three hours on my horse, we got back to the farm. As I dismounted my horse, the other cowboy said to me, “are you sure you aren’t from Texas? You know how to ride horses and could be in the rodeo!” That may perhaps be the best complement EVER considering that I ride horses about once a year, if even.
One side note embarrassing story about horseback riding. Like I said before, I was at the front of the pack with the other cowboy. He asked me my name and I asked him his. When he pronounced his name he said it was “Wiuw”. He asked me if they had this name in the US, and I said no, because I couldn’t think of any name similar to it. Katherine later on asked me what his name was, and because it was a hard name and I didn’t really remember it, I said it was something like “Giusy” or “Giuseppe”. The next night the girls and I were sitting and talking to Marcello and Katherine asked Marcello what the cowboys name was, because I couldn’t remember it. Marcello asked me what I thought it was and I said “Giuseppe” or something like that. Marcello promptly told me that his named was Wilson, and called Will! Apparently in Brazil they pronounce Will “WIUW”. I was embarrassed but I didn’t really care, because I figured I would never see Wiuw or Giuseppe again. WRONG! Two seconds later when I am up getting water, I hear Marcello say in Portuguese, “She thought your name was Giusy and Giuseppe!”. I turned around started to die and crack up and almost drop two glasses of water. There is Wilson, staring right at me laughing, and kind of looking bashful. I stand still laughing hysterically, while being unbelievable embarrassed for about 3 minutes. Finally when I sit down, everyone is laughing most likely both at and with me. THEN Wilson continues to sit and talk with us for a good 20 minutes and every so often Marcello calls him Giusy or Giuseppe, and it all starts over again….excellentttt. Anyways that was huge embarrassing moment # 2 on the trip. But nonetheless, an excellent memory.
OK BACK TO THE TRIP.
The next day after horse riding we did an all day truck and walking safari. The two girls, Marcello, 4 Germans, a driver and I pile into a rickety truck to go off and explore the pantanal. This was a veritable PARADE OF ANIMALS! It was fantastic. These are the wild animals we saw on the ride: Capybaras, Caimans (including a baby which I held—see photo), deer, howler monkey (see attached sad story and picture), gorgeous birds including storks, toucans, and vultures, Kuwatis, a dead armadillo, wild boars, lizards, iguanas, and giant Otters.
Here are photos of the wild animals we saw that day.

This is a dead capybara that vultures were going to start to eat...eww

The domesticated/farm animals we saw were cows, horses, goats, chickens, and pigs. Basically the day was us driving around, first stopping at what seemed like an abandoned farm, where we say most of those domesticated animals. Here are the photos from that including the baby goat that I LOVED and who clearly loved me back.

Then we drove through the pantanal and saw the animals I mentioned above. At one point, Marcello says he is going to find us a baby caiman, so the truck stops, he lowers himself from the bridge we were on, fishes through the water a bit, and miraculously comes out with a baby caiman who is about a week old and truly looks like a toy and baby dinosaur. Here are pictures of the baby and ME with the baby!

Later we stopped at a little rest stop to eat our packed lunches. And we proceeded to see these lovely pigs, boars and dogs there.

Later as we were driving some more I shouted that I saw a monkey in a tree. Marcello obviously didn’t believe me, but he told the driver to backup anyways, and low and behold, there was a large howler monkey huddled in a tree. Get ready for a sad story… ☹ This monkey's hipbone was broken and semi sticking out…with maggots living in it…ewww. Marcello said he would die soon and that is why he was alone. I was really sad by this, and Marcello said there was nothing we could do to help him, but we did leave the monkey the left over veggies from our lunch so at least if he was hungry, he could munch a bit. Here are photos of the sad monkey ☹.

After the sad monkey, we drove a bit more and then stopped to do a walking safari. We walked through forest and plains and saw the shell of a dead armadillo, and Marcello yelled at some howler monkeys that yelled back.
Here are some photos from the walking Safari!

That night we spent a long time talking to Marcello where we learned crazy stories about his life, like the fact that his father had two wives at once and the kids discovered it by not knowing each other, going to the same school and having permission slips with the same father’s signature on both. We also learned that Marcello was married to a German, and has a daughter who lives in Germany. How did he meet his wife? He met her as her guide in the pantanal! Haha! That was a source of many jokes for the rest of the trip. Here are some pics of Marcello and Sarah from hanging out that night.

The next day was jam packed because we did three activities.
First we did the boat trip again where we saw a beautiful toucan and more caimans, but it proceeded to downpour so we raced home and I cuddled in my bed till lunchtime. After lunch time the weather got quite nice and we INNERTUBED down the river. This is the same river where I would fish for piranhas later on and where we spotted alligators earlier. The way it worked was that we all piled in the boat with our big rubber inner tubes and Marcello took us up river. He stopped, we hopped in the river in our inner tubes, and the current was strong enough to take us down the river at a rather fast pace. Of course, we all had a can of Skol, a Brazilian beer in our hands, as we floated down the river.
Here are my inner tubing photos!!!

This Is Wilson, also known as Guiseppe.

After inner tubing, we had our final activity of the day, Piranha fishing! We had bamboo fishing rods, with fishing line, and a hook that we put pieces of raw steak on! EWWW. I was the first one to catch a piranha! WOOOO! Then I didn’t catch one again until the last second before we were done with fishing. WHY?! Because piranhas are apparently genius fish that eat the meat of the hook, so you feel a pull when fishing, but they often don’t get caught on the hook. Anyways, it was really fun to piranha fish and great to see them up close and see their vicious teeth. After fishing, they cooked the fish, and lots of people ate them! Not me, but here’s a picture of Sarah eating one.

STORY OF THAT DAY: Earlier that day we were supposed to wake up at 5 am to do a 5:30 sunrise walk. We woke up saw that it was cloudy, so we were going to go tell Marcello that we weren’t going. Soon, we hear shrieks from Sarah screaming that something is attacking her. At first we didn’t really know what to think, and then all of a sudden she says it is a bat that keeps swooping at her face. She runs into the bathroom and we say that we are going to find Marcello. We go get him, and when he gets to Sarah’s room we all realize that her door is locked. Sarah is still screaming from inside the bathroom and we can see the bat through her window, its small and looks lost and freaked out. Marcello tries to open the door with his knife and proceeds to break it in half…that was sad. Then we yell at Sarah to run and unlock the door and then run out. She says she cant because the bat will attack her. Next Marcello goes and gets a bunch of keys from the front desk, but none of them open Sarah’s door. We found out that we all actually have the ONLY copy of keys to our rooms. Marcello then starts saying loudly, “WHY YOU RUN TO TOILET AND NOT OUTSIDE?! WHY YOU RUN TO TOILET!?” At this point I’m laughing hysterically, Katherine is trying to calm Sarah, and Marcello is yelling this to Sarah. Suddenly the bat swoops onto the window near us and we scream. We yell to Sarah to run quickly, unlock the door and run outside. Finally she does, because she knows there is no other way, and successfully escapes the room. We run into our room to comfort Sarah, who is not happy, and Marcello deals with the bat. We all go outside to see the bat and it’s stuck on Sarah’s flip-flop. Marcello says he hit it on the head just to make it drunk, and within a few minutes, we see that it revives itself, we all scream, and Marcello sets the bat free. And that was the end of the bat saga. Here are pictures of the bat on the flip-flop!

That night, after our full day of activities we have to stay up because we have to leave at 12:30 to catch our bus which could come AROUND 1:55 am. We pack our stuff and we sit in the dining room making necklaces, with Marcello and this other guy from the pousada, Zezinho. Marcello made me a bracelet, and Zezinho made me an anklet! We then all packed into the truck at about 12:45 and head off to the random bus stop in the middle of nowhere. We get there at about 1:25 and the bus comes at about 1:35, a good 20 minutes early. If we had left even a bit later we could very well have missed our bus. As we hugged and kissed and said our goodbyes to Tony (the driver), Zezinho and Marcello, we boarded the bus. The whole bus situation was very surreal and really reminds me of the night bus in Harry Potter because it really seemed to appear out of nowhere, was completely dark with everyone sleeping, and had two pristine seats waiting for us as we got on. Katherine and I fell asleep immediately and groggily woke up at the bus station in Campo Grande. Someone who works for Gil’s tour got us, and told us to lie down in his office until Gil came and got us. We fell asleep immediately and by the time we woke up, it was time to go to the airport, because YAY there is a flight crisis in Brazil. Hundreds of flights daily are being cancelled or delayed and luckily our two flights were only delayed. We finally got home to Rio safe and sound and realized how much we loved the pantanal and could go back in a split second. I truly hope I have the chance to go back to the pantanal some day soon!

Here are a few more pictures from the pantanal: