Pantanal

It´s been a while since I posted!  After our night train from Santa Cruz, we arrived at the Brazillian border.  The border opened at 8:00AM and we expected about two hours to cross.  Well it actually took 7 hours to cross!  There was the first line to leave Bolivia.  For a country that was very easy to enter, they sure wanted a lot of information on us to leave.  That took about 3 hours, then we walked to the Brazillian entry.  There was a small line and it looked like it would only be 30 mins or so, judging by the people in front of us.  Two entry agents turned into one slow agent, and the line got slower and slower.  After 90 mins or so the first person in our group of 10 finally made it to the agent.  At that time a Brazillian woman was having issues re-entering Brazil.  She had walked past the leaving Brazil line and was getting flack from the agent for not getting the leaving Bolivia stamp.  The problem was that he was devoting his full attention to arguing with her and our line stopped for at least 30 mins more.  She finally left the building and just walked into Brazil anyways.  Oh well, we had to expect things like this and we have been pretty lucky overall in terms of travel luck.

Our group pulled up to the Pantanal Lodge after a few more hours of driving.  This lodge was similar to our Amazon lodge with a central dining hall and instead of bungalos, we stayed in a dormitory with hammocks for beds.  The next morning was a drive along the road near the lodge.  In the Amazon, we saw a few cayman (alligator family) along the river.  On our drive we saw literally hundreds of cayman!  At every clearing there were dozens of them basking in the sun.  The Pantanal is the world´s largest wetland so I figure there are millions of them around.  We also saw a family of capyburas, some macaws and finally we saw toucans!  It was very tough to get a photo of them because they are skiddish, but I finally got a blurry pic from far away.  It´s on my camera so I´ll add it later in whatever method I figure on doing.

After our drive we did some piranha fishing.  In the Amazon we fed them from boats and noise was the key to capturing them.  We used a piece of fish for bait and cast the line (no reel) in a method that splashed the bait noisily then did a little mooching.  If you make noise it doesn´t take long to get a nibble but hooking them was tougher.  Over an hour or so I caught one piranha and one redfish.

That night we had a bonfire and some caiprinhas.  This is the Brazil national drink and is very tasty.  Other guests in the lodge were a french brass band and they put on a concert for us by firelight.  Definitely a highlite of the trip!

The next day we had a horse ride in the area and I think also a hike.  Come to think of it I probably have my activities all mixed up but it doesn´t matter.  We also did a horse ride and a hike.  Another bonfire, without the french brass band, plus more caiprinhas too!  The next day we drove to Bonito, for some incredible snorkling!