Everyone has heard of that awesome corner of Brasil, hidden deep in the continent, where nature still reigns supreme, the indigenous tribes live as they always have and the influence of Western Culture is still minimal. Where the jaguar roams undisturbed and flocks of parakeets and toucans soar overhead. Where you walk with fear, for the jacaré (crocodile) can snare you in a a moment. Where you can go fishing for those same pirañas that can devour an animal in mere seconds.
And I can tell you that the stories you’ve heard are true, incredible as they may seem. For I’ve been there. The Pantanal!
“What”, you say! “I thought you were speaking of the Amazon.”
No, I do mean the Pantanal, Terra de Ninguem (Nobody’s Land, in Portuguese). For it is most everything that you’ve heard that the Amazon is, and then some! It is a huge region, over 230,000 square kilometers. Once a vast inland sea, the Xaraés Sea, it is now a vast, flat, alluvial plain that is under up to 3 meters of water for nearly 7 months each year. Transportation in that rainy season is almost entirely by boat and airplane. The animals all cluster on cordilheiras, small raised hummocks of land covered in lush vegetation, while the flood waters swirl about them. Then, as the torrential rains stop in March, the land slowly begins to drain. The lagoons and marshes dry out and rich, fresh grasses create a verdant savanna surrounding the cordilheiras. The animals can travel about freely and enjoy the teeming ecosystem. Only the jacaré and pirañas struggle during the brief dry season in July and August. For their ponds nearly dry out! And as it gets drier, travel by 4X4 trucks becomes possible. And that's when the small groups of tourists, like me, get an incredible eyeful!
With a climate like the one I just described, clearly man’s intervention has been minimal. In the early 1700’s, gold and rumors of gold brought a brief influx of people. They quickly left the inhospitable land to the Bororo Indians!
Systematic farming is impossible, although farming for rice, soybeans, sugar cane and coffee does occur all around the perimeter of the Pantanal. Cattle ranching is the main source of income for the brave souls who do dare to live here. But it takes a lot of land for a ranch to even hope to make a go of it! Many of them are increasingly turning to eco-tourism as their best chance to eke out a living in this land that they’ve come to respect and love.
For me, from Asunción, it was an 8 hour overnight bus ride to the eastern border of Paraguay and the lazy border towns of Pedro Juan Cabellero, Paraguay and Punta Porá, Brasil. These towns are definitely not set up for the occasional international traveler. It was a four hour struggle scurrying about the town in a taxi to get the proper stamps in the passport from the Paraguayan and Brasilian authorities. Then finally, back on the next bus for another 6 hours to Campo Grande, Brasil! From there it was 4 more hours by bus to a tiny cross roads on the edge of the Pantanal, then 5 hours more in a 4X4 to our camp! We arrived well after dark and were treated to the incredible sounds of the jungle and a sky overflowing with the stars of the southern hemisphere! Boy it felt good to stretch out in the hammock for a nights sleep!
Our four days there settled into a wonderful routine of early morning and late afternoon hikes out across the savanna, around the lagoons, into some of the various cordilheiras. And relaxing afternoons, perfect for the well deserved siesta!
The animal life was incredible! Among our sightings were:
Capybara - This is the largest rodent in the world. It is most closely related to the Guinea Pig but can be up to two feet tall and weigh as much as 100 pounds! It is a grass eater with large webbed feet that allow it to be quite a swimmer also. It can stay under water for up to five minutes and depends upon the water as a place to hide when it feels threatened. We often saw a grouping of them, usually 7-15 with only one dominant male, bounding into a lagoon as we approached. And their heads have a unique design that has placed their eyes, ears and nose very close to the top of their head, thus allowing them to stay nearly submerged and still check out the situation around them! They also depend on the water for cooling in the hot summer because they, like all rodents, have very few sweat glands.
Coati - Related to the raccoon with a beautiful ringed tail and masked, bandit like face, this animal roots around for insects and also enjoys eating spiders, fruit, lizards, mice and scorpions. One unique factor about the coati is that it is active, doing all of its hunting, in the day. You may have heard of this animal before by its less correct but more common name, coatimundi. Coatimundi is actually a Guarani word that means ‘lone coati’. Guarani is the language of the indigenous people of this region and is still commonly spoken, even on the streets of Asunción.
Marsh deer - This is a tiny deer species, having a hard time of it lately due to competition with the cattle on the ranches and the diseases that the cattle industry has brought into the Pantanal.
Howler Monkey (Mono Grito) - These loud and raucous monkeys travel in packs and have incredible screaming matches to defend their territory from other packs. Their howl sounds more like an approaching train or tornado than anything you could imagine coming out of the tiny body!
Armadillo - There are two species here, a more common 9 banded species and a less common subspecies that is much more stout with a snub nose. On our horse back trip we ran across an armadillo scurrying about the savanna, hoping to reach its burrow before we got too close. This immediately turned into a challenge that our guide could not resist, as he jumped from his horse and took off running after the creature, grabbing it by the tail and holding it up for our inspection. I think it would be fair to say that the guides weren’t always real sensitive to the wild animals!
Jacaré - This crocodile like reptile is actually a subspecies of the caiman. It can grow to be 10 feet long and can stay submerged in a lagoon for up to a half hour. It has flaps that actually cover its ears, nose and throat to make it water tight for long times under water. Like all reptiles, it is cold blooded and generally regulates its body temperature by staying in the water all day and then resting on the bank at sunrise and sunset. It eats fish, crabs, snakes, snails, ducks and other birds, capybara, deer and smaller jacaré. Its incredibly powerful tail is the key to its success in hunting. It uses the tail to slap and stun its prey, then uses its large, menacing teeth to tear into the meal! Again, our guide enjoyed entertaining us by tying his sandal onto a string and tossing it out near a jacaré in a lagoon. He would then jerk the string about until the jacaré decided that the sandal might be some good eating. The jacaré would chase the sandal all the way to shore where the guide would attempt to lasso him, grab him by the tail and hold him up for our inspection. Maybe not the ecologically right move, but incredible to watch nonetheless!
Jabiru Stork - This is one of the largest flying birds in the western hemisphere, often measuring up to 5 feet long. Its colorings are unmistakable and incredibly beautiful, a vivid white body and red and black collar rings around the neck. The Jabiru is unique among water feeding birds in that he feeds by feel. Most water feeding birds feed by sight, seeing their prey and attacking. The Jaribu instead sticks its bill in the water and waits for a fish to bump into it, then attacking the wayward fish or frog. This especially makes sense in the murky water of the lagoons of the Pantanal.
Parakeet - Yes, they actually do exist in the wild, not just at the pet store. They always travel in groups and are very loud!
Rhea - This huge bird, often nearly 5 feet tall, is related to the ostrich. However, it has only two toes, unlike the ostrich’s three toes. Like the ostrich, it does not fly. In many other parts of South America it has been exterminated because it enjoys eating agricultural crops, therefore the farmers wage war against it! Here, where agricultural is all but impossible, it fares well.
Piraña - First, I hate to destroy your image of this viscous carnivore, but not all of them are flesh eaters. Now the ones we saw were! But generally they are not too dangerous to humans here. In fact, we actually fished for them! And I don’t mean from the bank. Nope, we took our cane fishing poles and waded out through the marsh grass to the open water. Then we dug our toes in to the mud. You see, your toes are the place they do like to ‘nibble’ on you. And especially your little toe is a nice bite sized morsel to them! Then we took big chunks of raw, dead flesh, threaded it onto the hook, tossed the bait out on the water, thrashed it about a bit to draw a little attention, then we started to let it sink. And more often that not, we got a bite! They are good fighters when you do hook them. And they have incredibly beautiful colorings in their scales. But those rows of sharp, triangular teeth are a menacing sight! Especially when you’re trying to get the hook out of there! But, viscous as they seemed, we didn’t lose any body parts! In fact the scariest moments came when a curious jacaré came over to check out our fishing. One guy in our group was pounding the water all around the jacaré so hard with his cane fishing pole in an effort to scare the jacaré away that he actually broke the cane pole! The guide was on the bank at the time, laughing away!