The Pantanal Region

After leaving the Iguaçu Falls, we took an overnight bus trip northwards to Camp Grande from where we arranged to visit the Pantanal region, an area not unlike the Botswana Okavango Swamps in character. Located in the upper Paraguay River basin, the Pantanal straddles Brazil's border with Bolivia and Paraguay with about 80 percent being in Brazil.

It is the world's largest freshwater wetland, a seasonally flooded plain fed by the tributaries of the Paraguay River. At 68,00 square miles, it is almost ten times the size of the Everglades. It is also on of the world's most productive habitats. Annual floods, fed by tropical rains, create a giant nursery for aquatic life, including 260 species of fish. As the waters recede in the dry season, the Pantanal attracts a great influx of birds and other animals - one of the hemisphere's greatest natural phenomena.

The bird life was phenomenal and we thoroughly enjoyed our boat trips along the myriad of waterways full of alligators and capivaries (humongous hamsters) as well as the hikes, horseback riding and piranha fishing (yes, they do bite and have very nasty teeth!) I managed to catch a 5kg fish which our Indian guide told us was the ‘king of the river’ – I was somewhat overwhelmed as I’ve never been fishing in my life. It was good eating as well. By the way, piranha makes for excellent sashimi!

It was while we were there that I celebrated my birthday and considered it a very special birthday present indeed!

Our trip took us away for just two weeks then back to Cabedelo and our boat, via Sao Paulo, and a touch of reality. Paul has started to replace the wooden section of our spray dodger – it had rotted right through. Also, since our return, our inverter has decided to go on a holiday of its own and simply won’t switch on, thus, no electricity at the moment. And, as is inevitable, we have so much weed growing on our hull that we have created our own mini ecosystem. Calypso is too big to take onto the hard here so we’ll have to start diving to clean her up a bit.

For any of you following in our wake, this is definitely the safest place to leave one’s yacht for a while. We were relieved to find all was well upon our return and everyone here had kept a lookout. It seems a shame to visit such a vast country and only see the coastal region – it’s so different inland. We’d also like to visit the Amazon region but will wait until much later and enter from the Venezuelan side prior to leaving the Caribbean.

It is now the rainy season here and we are certainly getting our fair share of it. It’s getting to be a bit much so I suppose it is time to think about moving on – all the cupboards and doors are now sticking, some I can’t get open at all! We need to get to some drier regions.

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The Iquacu Falls

It probably sounds a bit pretentious to say we took a holiday away from the boat, but that’s exactly what we did.

This furlough took us down to Brazil’s southwest region where the Iguaçu Falls meet at the borders of Argentina, Paraguay & Brazil. What a magnificent sight they are! A panorama of hundreds of waterfalls cascading down through the sub tropical rain forest! In fact, the system consists of some 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers of the Iguazu River. The Devil's Throat, a U-shaped, 82m high, 150m wide and 700-m long cataract, is the most impressive of all, and marks the border between Argentina and Brazil. Two thirds of the falls are within Argentine territory. They are quite unspoiled by man which makes them all the more dramatic.

We spent an entire day hiking on the Argentinean side, and took a dinghy ride up the rapids right up to (and under) one of the falls. We were thoroughly soaked but what a great view and terrific fun. Niagara & Victoria Falls are spectacular in their own way, but these..............!!!

We then spent another day back on the Brazilian side which gives a totally different, but equally as beautiful aspect. I guess this would be a valid excuse for using the word "awesome". It certainly was a worthwhile trip and gave us a little more insight into this huge country.

Nearby is a bird park which was outstanding and, although we are not advocates of keeping birds in cages, this was exceptional. Some of the huge walk-through cages allowed up to get up close and personal and we fell in love with the curious toucans and ever-so-noisy macaws. We thought we'd only need a couple of hours but, when it was closing time, we'd not even progressed half way through and decided to return the following day. Most impressive.

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