Messing About On The River

Sunday 4 March

Breakfast was served at 07.00 here, so we were up at 06.00 just after the sunrise. The sky was perfectly blue with just a few white wispy streaks painted across the sky on an artist’s whim. Cereal amounted to oatmeal – not cooked into porridge as we would have it at home, but dry flakes to be soaked in cold milk. Colin, of course, had to try it, and drenched the top with honey. He was also persuaded by Valeria to have a poached egg – his favourite and something he hasn’t had in weeks – the option in hotels always seemed to be scrambled. I tried the homemade bread – soft and sweet with caraway seeds I think – with pineapple jam – also made in the kitchen. Colin later tried the guava variety.

Ariane had arranged for us to canoe up the river this morning, so we returned once more to the river bank, to find Lico ready with a couple of two-people green canoes. I climbed into the front of the first one, and Colin sat in the back. We were both given paddles – Colin’s was double-ended, while mine was just a single one – so he would be doing all the work! Ariane and Lico boarded their canoe and we set off along the inlet again to find the main river. It wasn’t so easy in a canoe – the bushes and shrubs poking up through the water had to be negotiated – and working out which side to paddle to turn the canoe left and right and doing it fast enough to miss the obstacles, was a bit nerve racking at first – I have to say that Ariane and Lico were no better than us, and often had to back paddle or turn their canoe in a full circle to navigate a path. Once we reached the river we steered a course down the centre, while the other two kept closer to the bank, turning in and out of the inlets. Watching birds while paddling was precarious at times, but we just stopped paddling to watch, remembering not to turn round or move suddenly – amongst others we saw kingfishers, cardinals, tiger and white faced herons, screamer birds and hawks. Dragonflies here are like the butterflies at Iguazu – there are hundreds all the time, dipping to lightly touch the water, spreading ripples in ever increasing circles, as they fly off again. It was sometime hard to avoid them crashing into your face. The colours are all the shades of the rainbow and more.

We had to navigate under a wooden bridge – a couple of spans of which were lying in the river! This was one of the original bridges that connected the outlying farms in the Pantanal to the road to go to the town and city – Aquidauana and Campo Grande. But a couple of years ago, when the river flooded, trees were brought downstream in the raging current, and smashed into the struts which caused the collapse. It has been decided not to repair or replace the bridge, as it also allowed tourists free access to the far reaches of the Pantanal, which is something the local people want to control – so that they can maintain the environment. It felt a bit like being in the Boat race when they have to steer for a specific span of the bridges and we had to duck our heads right down to our knees to avoid our heads colliding with the top of the bridge. Once safely through the span we almost immediately spied a family of giant otters playing in the middle of the river. We stopped to watch their antics until they swam for the riverbank, calling to each other in loud honking voices.

After a couple of hours, we reached a board at the side of the river which marked the boundary between our fazenda and the next, so we should go no further downstream. Lico called back to the ranch on his radio to ask for the boat to come and collect us. Meanwhile we were drifting further on in the current which had suddenly become quite strong, and it was surprising just how far we traveled in the short time we were waiting. Clambering out of the canoes into the boat was a bit perilous as both boats rocked with the transfer of weight, but Colin, Ariane and myself scrambled safely aboard, while Lico stayed in his canoe and grasped the side of the boat. The driver of the boat – Ansell (another field guide, who is married to the cleaner) – held on to our canoe whilst steering the boat at the same time – no easy task – so it was decided to leave the canoes at the boundary point – safely tied up in a small inlet on the riverbank - while we traveled back to the fazenda. The men would collect the canoes later in the day. Arriving back at the homestead we were offered more delicious fresh fruit juice, before taking another shower. In the hour before lunch – served at midday – I had time to blog a little – I am getting behind again – while Colin perused some books on life in the Pantanal on display in the lounge.

We are getting used to the Brazilian style of meals – salads served with hot vegetables, beans with every meal, and usually beef. Today amongst other dishes there was also chicken, with potato salad, coleslaw without any dressing, and caramelized pumpkin (large chunks of pumpkin that had been covered thickly with sugar and roasted so that the coating had become caramelized and crispy – and very, very sweet – it was more like a desert dish, but here they eat it with meat. For dessert we had star fruit and cashew fruit, both in thick burnt sugary sauces. I had never realized that cashew nuts were the seed of a fruit. The fleshy part of the fruit was the size of a plump green chilli - or perhaps a long bonnet chilli – resembling a closed umbrella in shape – and the nut is the handle of the umbrella, hanging down under the fruit. The Brazilians do not eat nuts, so they are all exported, but they do eat all the fruit – here tasting a little like caramelized figs or apricots. They were very nice but much too sweet for me – even with my recent change in tastes. I cannot imagine how many cashew fruit they must grow just to keep me in cashew nuts for a year, never mind the rest of the world.

We had another break again after lunch, and I don’t know if it was the early morning yesterday catching up with us, or the exertion of canoeing today, but we both felt very tired and I fell asleep for an hour and a half, instead of blogging! We met Ariane and Lico again at 16.00, this time to explore the surrounding salt lakes by jeep – a beat-up and battered vehicle, that resembled a tut-tut in Thailand, without the roof. Most of the lakes in the Pantanal are fresh water, fed by the rivers and streams and topped up with the rains. There are a few salt water lakes that are not attached to the freshwater system in any way, but hollow bowls within dips in the plains, which have sandy bottoms over a thick layer of clay. The salt is naturally in the ground and unlike the fresh water lakes very little vegetation grows around them. The forest starts some 100 metres away from the water’s edge, and this gap is filled with sparse spiky grass and very small tufty “weeds”. These lakes are known as “salidas”. The fresh water lakes have thick vegetation of bushes and trees as well as grasses and reeds right up to the water. We drove along sandy tracks skirting the different lakes and stopping to watch various birds – particularly the jabiru storks, huge birds with jet black heads and long thick black beaks and a large bulbous white body. As they bend down to search for food around the water’s edge, they display bright flamingo pink necks. They have no feathers on their heads and neck, it is just coloured skin. We also stopped to see several species of woodpecker – including one with a yellow head and one that has lots of white plumage, but making that same tapping sound on the tree trunks. Around the lakes were tiny plovers, sandpipers, terns with large beaks, South American ducks, stilts and herons while in the woodland there were hawks, red macaws, toucans, caracaras, and a long fork tailed flycatcher – the tail was over a metre long!

It was quite late when we started back, to see the sunset again, but on the way, we kept stopping to look at white collared pecorinos which can run at 70 kms per hour, some scarlet and green macaws and a family of capybari running off into the undergrowth. Wild feral pigs were resting in the long grass - these have become a problem in Brazil, as now animals are not allowed to be killed in the Pantanal, but they do untold damage to the land and their numbers are growing at a fairly fast rate. Day faded fast and we could see the orangey/yellowy sky in the distance, over the tree tops. Suddenly nightjars were flying in front of the jeep, and we were stalking crab-eating foxes – small thin rusty coloured creatures without a distinctive brush tail we associate with foxes - that slink along in the dark. The air was filled with flickering fire bug lights and the bird calls changed to the more haunting night calls, like those of owls,

It took quite some time to make the return journey, and it was almost 19.00 when we arrived – just half an hour to dinner. Valeria offered Colin one of her Ciprianis – the Brazilian equivalent of a “pisco sour” made the Pantanal way – lots more lime so it is very sharp. There was just time then for our third shower of the day and change before we were summonsed to dinner, which included cooked but cold cauliflower, broccoli and carrots as a salad, and hot aubergine. Instead of potatoes there was deep fried cubes of manioc – this really is a versatile vegetable as it is cooked in a variety of ways and ground to make flour (a bit like our potato, but tasting more like an almost flavourless parsnip). The highlight of dessert was a really light but very tangy, lemon mousse which we all ate with gusto. Last night the room had had millions of tiny midge-type flies swarming around the lamp as well as in the air, which had been a nuisance. Tonight the air was absolutely clear, and we weren’t bothered at all by bugs. Very strange.

After some tea, Colin and I were still feeling exhausted, so instead of blogging – which I ought to have done to catch up a bit – I read my book for five minutes and went to sleep – it was still only 22.30. But my excuse is that we have to be up at 06.00 again tomorrow.