The alarm went off at 5.00 am on Monday and we walked to the bus station. It was a four and a half hour journey from Bonito to Buraco das Piranhas during which time Keith read the Lonely Planet and Suzie dozed. We arrived at Buraco das Piranhas at 11.00 am and there was no one waiting to meet us as promised. We waited for a while and we were just starting to get worried when a jeep arrived to pick us up. We clambered aboard and drove 8 kms along a straight dirt road over 9 makeshift wooden bridges to the Passo do Lontra Parque Hotel. The hotel was a group of buildings on stilts situated right on the banks of the Miranda River. To reach it we had to walk along a series of wooden boardwalks. On the way to our room we saw caiman, capybara, kingfishers and hawks. We dropped our gear off at our apartamento, a basic, clean, wooden unit on the end of a group of four and high off the ground on boardwalk level. We had some lunch and then Keith walked around the extensive boardwalk along the river while Suzie had a rest. Keith saw caiman, howler monkeys, lizards, jacana, fish, herons including a striking white heron with a blue face, capybara, hawks and many other birds. The caiman were in large numbers and of all sizes. We both went for a lap of the boardwalk before our boat trip at 3.30 pm. We set off in the boat with our guide Paulo and we were cruising up the river enjoying the white necked blue heron, the spectacled caiman and the giant otter nest in the riverbank when the motor cut out and we had to float back downstream. Unfortunately we had a petrol pump problem which couldn't be fixed so we had to continue floating back until we got back to the hotel complex. We really didn't mind because it was so peaceful and much quieter without the motor running. On the way back we saw darter, tiny grebe, green iguana, red cardinals, cormorants, black hawk, needle-billed rufus-tailed jacamar, squirrel cuckoo, wood stork, golden collared macaw and green kingfisher. Back at the pontoon, we swapped boats and went upriver. We saw white ringed kingfisher, capybara, jabiru stork, tiger heron, night jar and berry faced ibis. We enjoyed the beautiful sunset and then Paolo switched on the spotlight and turned the boat around. We didn't see anything exciting except a houseboat that had just sunk and we only saw caimans, capybara and a domestic cat. We came back to the hotel for a shower and went to dinner where we were the only two guests. On the way back from dinner we saw a fox and a caiman under the boardwalk.
We set the alarm for 7.00 am on Tuesday so that we could have our showers and breakfast and be ready in time to meet Paolo at 8.00am. Again, we were the only two people (besides the owner) at breakfast.
After breakfast, we set off in the jeep to Fazenda Sao Joao – a farm that was owned by the same man who owned the hotel. We drove back to the long straight dirt road across more of the makeshift bridges. On the way to the farm we spotted a kingfisher actually catching a fish, the limpkin bird, buffalo, jabirus in their nest and a black collared hawk. Just after bridge 24, we turned into the farm. At the farm we mounted our horses and went for a two hour walk. The farm was huge, 2000 hectares and it was typical Pantanal country with lots of small lakes and marshes in the depressions and islands of trees on the slightly higher ground. Paulo told us that in the wet season the whole area is inundated so that all the animals congregate on the treed islands and all the areas inbetween are awash. As this was the end of the dry season it was particularly dry – although to us it seemed like a lush green jungle. The horses were well behaved and followed each other along the tracks through the open spaces, shallow water and the cordilheras or tree islands. These were obviously where most of the animals would hide and rest in the heat of the day only emerging in early morning, evening and at night. The islands were thick jungle on the outside but inside they were mostly large trees and many palms. The ground was covered in leaf litter so we made quite a lot of noise as we moved around. We did see black hooded parakeets, a beautiful pair of hyacinth macaws, deep blue with striking yellow circles around their eyes, a wild pig drinking, an iguana rushing for cover, pink spoonbills, wood storks, jabiru storks, jacana, ibis, herons, ducks and a red headed woodpecker. Paulo pointed out a particular tree which the fire ants lived in. After two hours we were hot and tired and glad to get back to the farm buildings. We walked around the perimeter of the farm buildings while we were waiting for lunch and we saw monk parakeets nesting in the palm trees, green backed lizards, crested ouro pendalo bird (black with yellow tail) eating a pawpaw, and an oven bird at its impressive mud nest. We had lunch at the farm and then waited until 2.00 pm before setting out on foot. We saw spectacled caiman, sandpiper, lapwing, buff necked ibis, the nesting pair of hyacinth macaws again, plumbeous ibis, crested ouro pendalo, agouti, parrot snake, curacao bird, pipinguan, red green macaw, howler monkeys and a coatimundi. The agouti was a small rodent the size of a cat, the coatimundi was like a small bear and stared at us from the shade of a tree. We saw a large flock of hooded parakeets eating on the ground and making heaps of noise. We got back to the farm tired and sweaty and hopped into the truck for the ride back to the resort. On the way we saw an armadillo digging at the side of the road and a large ocelot which high tailed it into the bush. We walked around the boardwalk back at the resort and got the end of sunset and saw a few frogs. We went to the restaurant for dinner and to our delight there was another guest there – Anne from San Francisco. We sat with her at dinner and had a great time chatting. Keith spoke to a travel agent and organised our onward journey to Foz de Iguacu – bus to Campo Grande and then overnight bus to Foz de Igaucu. We went to bed tired but happy.
After breakfast on Wednesday we headed off in the boat with Anne and Paulo upstream towards the Rio Vermelha (Red River) which was a tributary of the Rio Miranda. On the way we saw a tiger heron, darter or snake bird, caiman, white necked blue heron, flycatchers, black cuckoo, capybara, striated heron, kingfishers, dona cabius (beautiful marsh bird), cormorants, fishing hawk, gura cuckoo, jabirus. We turned left into the Rio Vermelha and stopped near the giant otter nesting area. They weren't around so Paolo moved the boat to some nearby water hyacinth. We started fishing and it was the easiest fishing you could imagine! We were using makeshift bamboo rods with a short fishing line tied to the end and a small piece of raw steak for bait. We dropped our lines in and immediately began hooking gold and silver piranha. Suzie caught nine in the half an hour while Keith and Anne only caught four - more often than not they fell off the hook before we could land them. We had just decided to stop when the giant otters appeared. They moved very fast in the water but stopped and got up on the bank. Paulo started tossing our piranha onto the bank and they gratefully ate them. They were as big as a large dog and dark except for some white markings around the throat. The dominant female marked the bank with her excretions and wiped it everywhere! They eat small caiman as well as fish and they looked fat and glossy and in excellent shape. We ran out of piranha and had to leave to catch our bus so we went back to the resort at full speed. Back at the resort we saw a big iguana near our room. We tipped Paulo who had really looked after us and worked hard to make our trip to the Pantanal worthwhile. We took a last photo of a jabiru stork and drove in a VW Combi to the bus stop near the police station. The bus was the usual half an hour late. It felt like much longer because it was really hot and humid even though it was only spring. We arrived at Campo Grande Rodoviaria and bought tickets for the 8.00 pm bus to Foz do Igaucu. We got on the bus and updated our diary and uploaded our photos before trying to go to sleep.
When we woke up on Thursday morning, it was raining really heavily and the floor of the bus was wet. We had had a very ordinary night's sleep and got off the bus at Cascavel where we changed buses. We arrived at Foz do Iguacu two hours later and had to catch another bus to Centro. Thankfully it had stopped raining by the time we arrived. It was a short walk to Pousada El Shaddai where we checked in and had a much needed shower. On our way out, the owner offered us a taste of some fruit from the jaboticaba tree (also known as the Brazilian grape tree) that he had growing in his back yard. We had a look at the tree – it was very large and the purple fruit appeared to be growing directly on the bark of the tree.
We walked into town and had breakfast/lunch at Boi na Brasa, a churrasqueira (BBQ) restaurant. Then we walked back to the pousada for a cup of tea and a rest.
We spent most of the afternoon in the room catching up with our emails (no internet at the Pantanal) and enjoying some English satellite TV. Later on in the evening we went downstairs. There were some other travellers there and we ended up having a social evening sharing wine, trying passionfruit caipirinhas, chatting, dancing some samba and listening to music.
The sun was shining when we woke up on Friday which made it a perfect day for our trip to the Iguacu National Park. We had breakfast and then caught the bus. At the park, we paid our entry fee and then caught a shuttle bus which took us to the beginning of the Trilha das Cataratas – a scenic 1.2 km trail leading to the Gargantua del Diablo (Devil's Throat) waterfall. We had a great overview of the falls from here – they stretched a long way in both directions with many individual falls often on two levels. The falls had been created as the water flowed off the basalt plateau onto a softer rock. We walked along the road to the top of the falls so that we could walk back along the track. We saw a group of six fully-grown coatimundi searching for food. At the end of the road you could look across the wide Rio Iguacu and see the mist rising where the water was disappearing over the edge. We caught a lift down one level and walked along a misty wet footbridge to a viewing platform directly in front of the Gargantua del Diablo which plunged dramatically splitting into several smaller waterfalls. Then we walked back to the bus stop along the scenic Trilha das Cataratas. The trail was well set up, with boardwalks, concrete paths, steps and viewing platforms placed at strategic points. The falls were spectacular and the trail followed the bank opposite the falls all the way! Far below were a couple of power boats in the river giving people aboard a view from below. Numerous vultures wheeled in the air above the falls. At one point the falls ran around behind a huge island.
Back at the bus stop we caught a bus back to the visitor centre and then walked to the Parque das Aves – a bird park which was a five minute walk away. First we had lunch at the park restaurant next to a pond of pink flamingos. There were musicians there and it really looked like the flamingos were dancing to the music. After lunch we walked around the park. Amongst other things, we saw macaws (including blue-and-gold macaws and scarlet macaws), sun conures, boa constrictors, various parrots, cassowaries, a large monitor lizard, butterflies, hummingbirds, a tarantula, several varieties of toucans and aracaris (toucanettes), golden conures/parakeets, cranes, guineafowl, rheas, king vultures, harpy eagles, a broad-snouted caiman, black-tufted-ear marmoset, turtles, tortoises, a green iguana, an anaconda, various ducks, scarlet ibis, herons, spoonbills and red legged seriema. We had a photo session with a very obliging blue-and-gold macaw. When it was Keith's turn to be photographed, the macaw took a shine to his top shirt button and very deftly removed it! We really enjoyed the park because we were able to enter several of the five metre high netted aviaries and interact with the birds.
We caught a bus home at 5.00 pm and had dinner before walking back to the hostel. We felt lucky to have had such a beautiful day for our last day in Brazil and we also had the excitement of looking forward to a new country – Argentina.
On Saturday morning we got on a rickety bus to the border. The bus left us at the Brazilian emigration office and we queued up to get an exit stamp. Once our passports had been stamped we walked back to the bus stop to wait for another bus. At the bus stop, we met Sean and Sara from the UK, Linda from Dublin and Andreas from Colombia. We jumped on the next bus to the Argentine immigration office and joined yet another queue.
After our passports were stamped, we went to foreign exchange bureau to change our remaining Brazilian Reais into Argentinian Pesos. In the meantime, Andreas had spoken to the border police and found out that it was only a short walk into town so we decided to walk rather than catch another bus. It was hot and the walk turned out to be a bit longer than expected. The first hostel that we tried was full however we found a room at the nearby Hostel Peter Pan. After checking in, we spent some time walking around town finding out about the buses to Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls and we went to an ATM to take out some money. We had lunch in town and tried an Alfajores (a special chocolate cookie sandwich), bought some more antibiotics to replenish our first aid kit, and then bought our bus tickets for Buenos Aires. We bumped into Sean and Sara and organised to meet with them later at their hostel. It was still pretty hot so we headed back to the hostel where we spent the afternoon in the pool and did some research on the internet.
At 8.00 pm we walked to the Sean and Sara's hostel to meet them. We walked around town looking for a restaurant and finally settled on Il Fratello where we all ordered steak. We knew that we had to order our greens separately so we ordered a dish of green vegetables. To our surprise the green vegetables turned out to be a plate of mixed lettuce. The steaks were pretty good and we had a lovely bottle of San Felipe 2009 Malbec to go with them. After dinner we were heading back to our hostel when we bumped into Linda with Meg from California at a Pizza Restaurant. We had another bottle of wine (Norton 2007 Classico – which wasn't as good) with them and finally headed back to the hostel at midnight.
We set the alarm for 7.15 am on Sunday so that we could have breakfast and head straight to the falls. After the breakfasts in Brazil, our first breakfast in Argentina was very disappointing. It was just coffee, croissants (media luna) bread and butter with various jams. After breakfast we checked out of the hostel and walked to the bus station where we caught a bus to the Cataratas (falls). We had to queue for a half an hour at the ticket office because it was a long weekend in both Brazil and Argentina and there were buses full of tourists arriving every five minutes. We walked through the park entry complex and took the Upper Circuit Trail. We walked on boardwalks which took us along the top of a series of waterfalls with great views from above. It was such an incredibly beautiful day with blue sky dotted with a powder puff clouds. The sun was reflecting off all the water and we were surrounded by green foliage. We saw a pair of trogons nesting in a termite nest next to the trail. There were many coatimundis busily snuffling through the jungle debris on the ground. At the end of the Upper Circuit we could see the San Martin Island surrounded by waterfalls. Unfortunately the island was closed but normally you could get a boat from the lower circuit and walk around the island. We completed the Upper Circuit and then took the Lower Circuit Trail. This time the boardwalks took us through the jungle along the base of the waterfalls so we had a view of the waterfalls from below.
After lunch at the cafeteria, we decided to do the Devil's Throat Trail. We planned to catch a small train to the start of the trail, but the crowds were so large that the train was totally full. Instead we walked along the trail beside the train track which was filled with a continuous stream of butterflies which flew past us. The butterflies were primarily various shades of yellow with a few other different types. They landed in some places and we were able to take photos of them. Eventually we reached a boardwalk which crossed right over the Rio Iguazu to the main Devil's Throat waterfall. The viewing platform was right above the spot where the brown water of the river fell off the horseshoe-shaped basalt plateau creating a white cloud of mist which prevented you seeing the bottom. A few hundred metres away we could see the Brazilian side of the river. It was a fabulous sight and a great way to finish the awesome falls. It seemed better organised and presented than the Victoria Falls in Africa.
We walked back to the bus stop and caught a bus back to town. We were happy to sit down after the day walking in the heat. We had a quick shower at the hostel before getting the bus to Buenos Aires on a super comfortable Rio Uruguay bus "cama" (bed) class. We had a full recliner seat and it was even better than the buses that we had caught in Brazil. It really was like business class on the plane with movies and a bus attendant that came by at regular intervals to ply us with drinks, sweets and biscuits. At 10.30 pm we were served dinner with a choice of soft drink, water, red wine or white wine and after dinner, we were offered a choice of whisky or champagne! This was a world away from the skanky buses of India and Africa!
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