Pantanal

It was a one-hop flight plan from Porto Alegre to Cuiaba, the capital of the Brasilian state of Mato Grosso. This is also sort of the port of entry to Pantanal. The change of flights was at Sau Paulo.

Some images along the flight’s journey and as we land into Sau Paulo.

As I sit on the flight to Cuiaba from Sau Paulo, something hit me! I noticed that the boarding pass said 3:00 PM as time of departure from Sau Paulo and 4:20 PM as time of arrival at Cuiaba. That’s 1 hour 20mins. However, for flying time, it said 2 hours and 20 minutes!! That’s the thing Cuiaba is in a different timezone, 1 hour behind Sau Paulo. There are 4 timezones in Brasil, wasn’t aware of that. The country is indeed huge!

Reached Cuiaba and checked in.

Up early the next morning and ready to head on the adventure with no idea as to what’s in store 😀

After a good breakfast, myself and my guides were on our way.

We stopped at a nice farm for some birding. Got some good species and images. Was a nice way to warm up my camera gear 😀 The farm had a lovely water body too.

After the good session at the farm, we headed on towards the town called Pocone, last town before the vast wilderness. We stopped there to pickup some essentials and also fill gas.

Post that we entered the Trans Pantaneria, the road that leads to the very end of Pantanal. After about 30 minutes, we reached our place, Piuval, which was to be our stop for the next couple of days. Pousada Piuval, the lodge out there is like an oasis in the middle of nowhere.

Noon was time for a safari, first experience of the great Pantanal wilderness. Even though Piuval is officially part of the Pantanal region, it is still quite far away from what people generally know as the Pantanal wetlands. That was still a couple of days away. It was going to be land for now 😀

Amazing expanse, amazing habitat and wonderful intro to the land of Pantanal. The safaris were very productive and yielded my first Jaguar 🐆 ( Onça-pintada, as it is referred to locally, in Portuguese) sighting too!! 😀

The amazing diversity of birds kept me busy. Wonderful landscape with beautiful sunrises added to the overall experience.

We also had a great sighting of the Giant anteater. This animal feeds primarily on the termites and there were plenty of huge termite mounds around the property.

Sunsets were beautiful too.

A safari at night was also part of the agenda. It was a nice experience I have to say though we didn’t spot a lot of wildlife per se.

After a good couple of days at Piuval, we packed up and headed to Porto Jofre through the long stretch of road cutting through the Pantanal wetlands known as the Transpantaneria.

Porto Jofre is a settlement located on the Cuiwabá River in western Mato Grosso state of Brasil. It is at the end of the Transpantaneira Road. The Pantanal Matogrossense National Park is in the area downstream.

The ride is a bumpy one though as the road is still unpaved. Albeit that, the multitude of bridges across the swampy terrain, lots of wildlife to spot along the way and also the large herds of cattle being herded by horse-mounted ranchers keep you occupied.

After a long drive, we reached our place of stay at Porto Jofre, a nice inn by the bank of the river. The next few days were going to be all on boats as the waterways are the only mode of travel in the Pantanal.

Everyday, at sunrise, we board our boat and head out into the National park to explore the wildlife around and also try spotting the Onça (Jaguar) 🐆 😀

Amazing diversity of wildlife, lovely scapes along with beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

I was lucky to get some wonderful sightings of the Onça and also opportunities to make some great images.

Clocked more than 120 species of birds along with a wide variety of other wildlife like the Giant Otters, Jacarés (Cayman), Capivaras (Capybara) to name a few.

Haven’t gotten the time yet to download the images from my camera and process them. In the interim, here’s a quick glimpse of a few of the images (screenshots from camera previews)