The very dry (usually swampy) Pantanal!

After a few days of relaxation in Sucre, we said goodbye to some of our travelling companions and flew to Santa Cruz to meet up with the new contingent who would travel to Rio together.

This part of the tour had a shaky start – mainly due to the bus which would take us into the famous grassland swamp of the Pantanal. Sitting in Santa Cruz bus station we saw fancy air conditioned coach after fancy air conditioned coach enter the grounds and drive past our gate. Eventually, we saw a little humdinger enter, red and blue, it had certainly seen better days and we wondered what poor unfortunates would spent the next few uncomfortable hours on it. We did not have to wonder very long as it pulled in directly in front of us. After almost 8 months of travelling, we have spent time on some uncomfortable buses, with questionably qualified drivers (like the young driver in our leaky Cambodian bus who hadn’t obviously yet learned how to change gear, with no air conditioning, overcrowded with people, market goods and even animals. This one though, took the biscuit.

Initially, it was just not a pretty, modern bus. Then we noticed the small holes in the body work, the baggage doors which required a wrench to open and close them, the refrigerator being stored in the under carriage, while the spare diesel tank and tyre were removed. She had seen better days, this bus! There was however, worse to come. Our journey was to take us 17 hours from Santa Cruz, to the Bolivian border town of Puerto Suarez, 17 hours on bumpy dirt tracks. Even though she was old, you would think that being the only bus (apparently) running this route, she would be prepared for such a trip – the tyres told another story! With some tyres virtually bald and others, like this one having no treads at all, we were all anxious boarding.

As it turned out, we needn’t have been. Although not a beauty queen, she provided us with comfortable seats, a/c courtesy of the multiple open windows and reclining seats. We arrived safely to Puerto Suarez.

Our journey into the Pantanal was punctuated by a lunch stop and a quick swim in the shallow river, barely 10 feet from caiman basking in the sunshine. When we did eventually arrive at our accommodation, all thoughts of our dodgy bus journey evaporated. A small fazenda in the middle of the Pantanal, with stables adjacent, Fazenda São João provided us with a long dorm room with hammocks swaying in the warm evening breeze. It was nothing short of perfect.

The following morning after a filling breakfast, we headed up to the stables to meet our companions for the day. My trusty steed was Sagano. Having not ridden a horse for at least 10 years, I was anxious, but he took good care of me. Walking and trotting obediently initially as we meandered through the forests and tall grass paddocks, we both got a little braver towards the end of the trek and we even had a canter and a little gallop across the final few fields, ending with a jump over some bushes, which shattered any illusion I had that I was in fact in control. Nonetheless, it was a fantastic morning and I was sorry to say goodbye to Sagano.

There was little time for me to lament his departure however. After some lunch, we headed out on a safari drive. With the Pantanal experiencing a drought at the moment, the normally swampy grasslands are dry, dusty and bereft of the normally teeming wildlife. Even so, Our guide Alex showed us Caiman, Jabarou storks (symbol of the Pantanal), Capybaras (the world’s largest rodent), wild pigs and dozens of beautifully coloured birds. The true highlight of the afternoon though, was the hour we spent, fishing for Piranha at sunset. I am ashamed to say that I am one of two in our group of 9 who caught no fish, however, I think Schmo more than made up for my failings with a haul of 7 of the toothy critters! What else could we have for dinner then, but piranha! Despite the number that were caught between the group, we brought back only 9, one for each of us! The rest went back into the lake to continue their snappy little fishy lives!

Our time in the incredible Pantanal was almost over, but before we left, we had time for a short walk into the wilderness. With the land so dry, we were unfortunate in that the normally teeming swamps, were in fact completely absent. However, we still manage to catch glimpses of otters, caiman, capybara, storks, herons, cranes, South American screamers (like bush turkeys), cardinals, blue macaws, parakeets. No puma or jaguar unfortunately, but maybe that is a good thing, I reckon they could outrun me!