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December 18, 2005
Touring the Pantanal
[Travel Tip: This trip definitely stretches a backpacker’s budget. It was also made more difficult by the limited advice our guidebook gave on the subject (i.e. “It is hard to tell the good guides from the bad, most are just out to make a quick buck…”). For what it is worth, it might be of help to others interested in touring the PantAnnal our experience. Our recommendation would be to eliminate the middleman to the largest extent possible. The first quotes we obtained from emailing different hotels and agencies directly were extremely expensive. We decided to explore our options in town and were able to secure a price that was significantly lower than what we had been previously quoted, still this was way out of our normal price range. We went with it as it was once in a lifetime chance to see some of the animals in the wild that Emily had worked with at CRES. The best advice we can give is to contact a guide directly. Our guide, Paulino, seemed honest and gave us a fairly good tour given the season. His one-man-shop agency in Cuiabá, GabriellaTur, can be reached at (65) 9957-7070. At the minimum it would be a good place to get another quote.]
This morning after running some errands around town we were met at the hostel by our guide Paulino. Before heading to the airport to pickup Todd, we picked up Paulino’s 7 year old daughter Garbriella who would be coming with us into the Pantanal.
At the airport Todd arrived safe and sound. I practiced some more Portugees by buying the tickets to Salvador. The only tickets that were left departed at 4:00am in the morning on Wednesday so it looks like Tuesday is going to be a late night.
The drive out to the lodge where we were staying was great in and of itself. First, we stopped off in a small town to get a drink and Em got a few photos of the town square and some kids. Then, a few miles past the town the road turned to dirt and we immediately began to see wildlife. We saw tons of animals on the way out, which included caimans, capybara, jabiru stork, black-collared hawk, kingfishers, emus and swarms of mosquitos. Gabriella, who was shy at first, warmed up the entire ride and soon was laughing with us.
Once we arrived at the ranch, Pousada Canto do Arancuã we were pleasantly surprised. It has only been opened for a few months so everything was new. The pool in paticular was a treat we are not used to having. The owner showed us around and we all did our best to make due with our limited Portuguese.
At 7:30 we ate dinner and were debriefed on the plans for tomorrow. Should be a fun day.
Posted by Peter Mork at December 18, 2005 5:28 PM
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