Pantanals - 12/12/2008 to 15/12/2008

12/12/2008
left the hotel in Campo Grande at 0930 in a taxi up to our digs in the Pantanals, it was a nice and confortable big lodge on the river... arrived 1400
met jonathon and Adriana, we had a great few days with them, me and Jon just took the piss constantly... you live in the dust I live in a penthouse
wierd American woman playing guitar, singing and dancing around bare foot, turned out she'd been there for weeks...
went Paranha fishing in the afernoon on our boat with our guide for the few days, Gabriel, the star guide... the chefs cooked up our Paranha and we had them for dinner, bloody good food up there...
for some reason there were millions of flies about on our first night, not too nice
turned out that Gab hadn't been a tour gudie for very long he used to tajke military out into the bush, they'd have to survive without having taken food and water, told us a few stories about pananhas where a guy had his finger bitten off by the paranha and he had killed the fish, cut it open pulled the finger, put it in ice and got a helicopter to hospital for the guy and the finger... then there was a story about the ozzy's out in the bush on a survival thing with him, as they were wadin up through flooded plains the guy at the back about called out to his mate, Gab was about 30 metres from him, they guy called out and had been grabbed by an anoconda, all his mates leggedit, Gab ran back and hacked the beast with the macheti he always carries and saved the guy who got away with a few nasty scratches... Gab face was emotionless as he told his stories, hilarious, ma and Jon were in stitches
loads of camons, hundred up both sides of the river as far as you could see
13/12/2008
went trekking up at the farm, then had lunch up there and played Yatzee with the girls up there, the farmer was gabs uncle or something... went horse riding up there at 3pm, gab caught a Boa and crried it back, asked me to hold it while he got on his horse, no chance... we did all hold it later on for some pics then we put it in a tree..
the dutch guy 'tonto' kept trotting off on his horse, thought gab was gonna attack at one point... they had had jaguars thru 2 days before, unlucky us never saw any
14/12/2008
went boating down the river, got soaked in the rain again, was some Jaguar tracks where they'd had a drink, but that was it... the usual birds and camons etc
in the afternoon we went tubing in the river, well nic didn't too scared... tubing wasn't what i expected on the back of a speed boat, they took us up just opposite where we went Paranhe fishinf, got us to swim onto the rings then we floated down river on the current past the Camons, with Paranhas and possibly Anaconda in the water, we were told to keep our feet up cos thats what the Anacondas like to grab at, think the guides were winding us up but who knows... when we got taken up I went in the first boat with Gab, he had to dump me and the stuff on a beach and head back.. there were Camons around obviously so I asked him for a oar, he ignored me, as he went i said what about the Camons he turned round chuckling saying don't worry they will come and play... the git... nothing came up where i was shilling bricks for the 15 mins I was waiting
We went on a night safari when it got dark, after dinner, the wild life out there on the river is un real... all the animal eyes light up, un real amount of wild life
15/12/2008
we were leaving today, me and Jon done some Paranha fishing and got gab to take them off the hook, we like our fingers...
had an early lunch, got dropped off for a bus back to Campo Grande where we got an over nighter to Puerto Iguazzu
Jay