Iguazu Falls

 Friday August 27

As yesterday was mostly a travel day, we'll cover two days in one posting.  Remember the adventure travel comment a few days ago?  On Wednesday, our 4.5 hour drive to Campo Grande became a 6 hour drive because a local indigenous tribe closed the only east-west highway in the state to bring attention to their concerns about land use legislation being discussed in the Brazilian Congress.  The only alternate route would have added another 2 hours, so we sat and waited and watched a bit of their dancing.  An unplanned cultural experience. 

We drove south, but mostly east, from Caiman to Campo Grande, crossing through the red sandstone rim that holds the rain inside the Pantanal. But the rim is very irregular, resembling the buttes of the American Southwest in some places.  After an overnight in Campo Grande, on Thursday we flew to Foz du Iguacu, Brazil, to see the Iguazu Falls. "Foz" means "confluence", in this case of the the Iguassu and Panala Rivers (yes, Iguazu really is spelled differently in different contexts, in part because the confluence is also the intersection of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina)>

The falls themselves are upstream on the Iguassu, and form a very long horseshoe of individual falls, up to 350 feet high. The number of falls depends on the water level, but 275 is a good working number.  The sheer magnitude of this natural feature is overwhelming, and even hundreds of pictures can't do it justice, but we'll try!  Our hotel faces onto the northern edges of the falls, most of which are on the Argentine side of the river.  We also had the opportunity to see the falls from the air on a helicopter ride today.  And we were treated to an amazing sunset over the falls for our last evening in Brazil,

The weather here is very different than in the Pantanal -- lows in the 50's, highs in the 70's and enough rain that everything is green. After 10 days of 100 degrees and dust everywhere, it is quite a relief. We have taken advantage of the weather to be out walking as much as possible. We have seen a few new species, including a type of swift that actually nests on the cliffs beside and behind the falls, flying right through the sheets of water.  We also re-met some creatures that were elusive in the Pantanal but have adapted to humans here, particularly the coati,  who run right past people and aggressively beg for food. 

Pictured: Iguazu Falls from helicopter, sunset over the falls, Burrowing Owl, Violet-capped Woodnymph, Great Dusky Swifts. 

Our final day in the South Pantanal

 Our last day and a bit at the Caiman Ecological Reserve focused on experiencing the different biomes (replanted forest, dry forest, savanna forest, cordillero forest, wetlands and savanna) present in the reserve.  The landscape changes frequently, as do the species present.  The reserve is 130,000 acres, some of which is used for tourism and cattle ranching (with pantaneiros on horseback to herd them; never call them gauchos!) but much of the reserve is entirely pristine.

We continue to be very lucky, particularly with regards to seeing tapirs.  It is deemed rare to see a tapir in the Pantanal, but at least some of our group have now seen 9, three of them in broad daylight! On Tuesday's drive we saw a large group of collared peccaries (javelinos) as well as the final species of deer. 

Last night we went to a barbecue hosted at the horse stable, with local music provided by a guitarist and an accordion player.  Afterwards on a short night drive we saw a large male jaguar as he darted across the road.  This morning we saw his footprints in the dust along the side of the road. Our trip leader estimates that the jaguar weighed at least 135 pounds from the prints. Altogether we have had 8 jaguar sightings of 7 individuals. 

Wednesday afternoon will be spent driving back to civilization and a Thursday morning flight to Sao Paolo.  This will mark the end of our Pantanal trip, but we will go on an extension to see the Iguazu Falls before returning home. 

Pictured:  Collared Peccary, Pantaneiros, Red Brocket Deer, Jaguar at night 

A full day in the South Pantanal

After three days of boat rides and drives, it felt good to go for a walk this morning. We walked from the lodge along the road for about a mile, through re-planted forest. We saw 10 new bird species and about 30 species we'd seen before, as well as a new type of capuchin monkey. In this type of forest most of the trees are slow-growing or fruiting.  Then we drove to a "cordillera" forest, made up of fast-growing tree species that emerge in the dry ridges between runoff channels during the rainy season. These forest strips stay dry all year, but include the palms whose nuts are the primary food for Hyacinth Macaws.  We learned more about the Macaw project, which will be the subject of of a future entry. 

This afternoon and evening we drove to new areas of the reserve.  While we didn't see a lot of new species, we did get wonderful views of ones we'd seen before; it really felt like many of the animals and birds were posing for us, including a pair of macaws beautifully positioned in front of the setting sun.  We also watched a troop of capuchins cautiously approach a small watering hole. In the end, only three of them actually drank from the pond, perhaps because a small caiman was watching their every move from about three feet away. We also saw our first Red-legged Seriema, a grassland bird about half the height of a rhea, with elegant face markings and a delicate mincing step. Seriemas were used as the initial model for the creation of the velociraptors in "Jurassic Park". 

On the night portion of the drive we saw three separate tapirs (a large male and two females) and a family of pacas (nocturnal agoutis, quite unusual to see), so our luck continues to be good!  We also saw a crab-eating fox, which patiently waited for his picture to be taken (unlike the five previous encounters where they each scampered away in the dark).

Pictured: Greater Rhea, Crab-eating Fox, Hyacinth Macaws at sunset, Red-legged Seriema

A day of two halves, both marvelous

We went for our last morning boat ride in Porto Jofre this morning, hoping for a glimpse of a jaguar or the otters.  We explored some new sections of the river and saw a new bird, but the mammals weren't cooperating.  Then we turned into another stream to look at a heron with a fish in its beak, and the amazing Gonsalo (our boat pilot) spotted a jaguar peeking up over the lake weed.  It was the mother of the older cubs we had seen two days before.  We watched her walk to the river, swim across to the other side, and then for more than half a mile we moved in parallel with her as she walked along the river bank.  For several days we had benefitted from other boats calling in jaguar sightings, so we called ours in too.  This meant that we had about 15 minutes of private jaguar viewing and then about 10 minutes with increasing numbers of other boats.  The jaguar disappeared into the brush at that point.  What an amazing experience!  We also saw a family of seven howler monkeys just to top off the morning. 

We flew (about 1 hour 10 minutes, instead of all day driving) to our third camp in the Caiman Reserve, where the program to recover Hyacinth Macaw populations began in 1990.  At that point there were thought to be only 1500 birds in the wild; the most recent survey suggests over 6000, and they are now listed as vulnerable but not endangered.  Our having seen them at every stop on this trip supports the idea of their recovery. 

Out new location is dry savanna, in a largely cattle ranching area.  We started out on an afternoon safari ride, about an hour before sunset.  By the time sunset arrived, we had already seen a tapir, a 9-banded armadillo, new birds and a giant anteater!  The anteater allowed us to watch him bathe in a marshy spot to get ants out of his fur.  After the sun set and the moon rose, we continued on a night drive. We saw (at different times) four crab-eating foxes, three more giant anteaters and another tapir.  We can't wait to see what a full day will bring tomorrow!

Pictured: jaguar, blue-fronted parrot, Paraguayan howlers, giant anteater, young Brazilian tapir. 

Unexpected adventures

One of the great things about adventure travel is that you can never predict what will happen day-to-day or even hour-to-hour.  Our morning began with breakfast at 5am as usual, but as we left the dining hall we heard the unmistakable racket created by Hyacinth Macaws, four of which had roosted in a palm tree on the central green. Photographing dark birds in a dark tree before sunrise is a bit of a challenge. Of course it gets better with each passing minute, until they decide that it's gotten too light out, and fly off!

Similarly after lunch we strolled to the marsh next to the lodge to see if there were any dragonflies.  There weren't, but there WAS a yellow anaconda resting in the water with a few coils visible above the surface.  As we watched, a jacana (a small noisy water bird that walks on the surface of the lake weed with its large fan-shaped feet) came closer and closer... and the snake slowly uncoiled itself and slipped under the surface of the water to get closer to the bird.  We were ready for the "jump scare" part of this horror film, but at the last minute the jacana developed some common sense and flew out of harm's way. We returned to our room to look at the pictures from the encounter, and another Macaw landed in the tree next to us!

As for the more regularly scheduled parts of the day, we were able to explore some very long sections of the nearby rivers.  The jaguars eluded everyone today, but we saw beautiful landscapes and birds.  We have seen some of the birds so frequently that we have given them nicknames; for example, the Roadside Hawk we now call a "riverside" instead. We saw Hyacinth Macaws for a third time today, on a sandy beach sipping water from the edge of the river, a very unusual behavior. 

We also saw a medium-sized snake curled up under the vines on a riverbank.  We have mentioned our two excellent guides already, but we haven't talked about our boat pilot, Gonsalo.  He knows the rivers very well (which is essential with the water level so low) and does a wonderful job handling the boat. Today we got to see how good a wildlife spotter he is, not only with the snake but with a small green iguana sitting on the upturned roots of a downed tree-- he spotted it while driving the boat at a fair clip! 

Pictured: Yellow Anaconda with his almost-snack, Hyacinth Macaws (in tree at dawn and on beach), sunset on the Cuiaba River. 

A quiet afternoon

 After lunch, a swim in the pool and a short nap (we did get up at 4:45 after all!), we got back into our skiff.  We intentionally explored some of the quieter backwaters rather than the heavily traveled streams of the Cuiaba River this afternoon.  No jaguar sightings (by any boat all afternoon), but we saw howlers, agouti, capybara, giant otters, fishing bats, caiman and some new birds.   We also saw some fun behaviors: it seemed as though the capybara decided to "take a family trip to the beach" on this hot afternoon; there they were lined up just off a sandbar in the river, up to their knees in the water and allowing the ripples from passing boats to wash up higher on them. Near sunset we watched giant river otters dive back into the water from the shore.

As the sun begins to set, it is almost inconceivable how many insects appear in huge swarms near the surface of the water. This creates a feeding frenzy for all kinds of flycatchers -- and then as it gets darker, out come the fishing bats and the nighthawks.  Several of our photographers played around with photographing the fishing bats (the bats are red!!), which then meant we had to hurry home, with the skiff at high speed in the moonlight. 

The food has been very good throughout the trip, mostly quite traditional and farm-to-table.  At lunch today, Kevin had cashew fruit (not the nuts, the fruit itself, preserved in sugar from last season).  It was delicious, very like a caramel pear.  We have also eaten a lot of manioc in various forms with local vegetables, fruits and meats.  Here at Porto Jofre, there is also fresh fish from the river at every meal, while when we were in the northern Pantanal, we ate beef from the herds of the farm of the lodge. 

Pictured: Agouti, Blue-throated Piping-guan, Yellow-rumped Cacique, Vermillion Flycatcher

Friday morning

 We will post two blogs today, because the morning boat ride deserves an entry all its own.  The schedule for today was: breakfast at 5:00, on the water by 6:30, returning about 10:30 when it would start getting really hot.  Then lunch and an afternoon boat ride from 3:30 till dusk (about 6:00).  But as you'll see, we stayed out a lot longer this morning, and we'll be heading out at 3:00 because the viewing has been so good.

Our morning started with a pod of giant river otters (different from yesterday's den) fishing alongside our boat.  They hunt collectively, but once a fish is caught, that otter treats it as his sole property.  We learned that the otters immediately bite the tail off the fish so that it can't swim away if they drop it.  The crunching noise while an otter ate his (Large!) fish was amazing. We saw several new birds this morning (we are up to 150 species so far), a green iguana and a lot of sunbathing caiman. 

We looked for yesterday's jaguars, but while other boats got a fleeting glimpse of them, we did not, so we continued exploring. We found a pair of Paraguayan Howler monkeys (unlike other types of howlers, these show sexual dimorphism with the males black and the females burnt orange, a bit like gibbons).  Then we saw a troop of Capuchin monkeys jumping through the trees and snacking from an "ant tree", a type of mimosa with hollow trunks that are often home to small biting ants. We watched a caiman catch a fish, but he didn't choose to eat it in front of us. 

By then it was about time to turn around and head back -- but we found a howler mom with a small baby nursing, and then riding on her back.  About halfway back to the lodge we saw boats waiting in the river (and not at a known fishing spot) -- yup! Jaguar.  First two cubs, larger and older than yesterday's, resting at the top of a vine covered bank.  It was fun to watch them swat deer flies and decide where was most comfortable to rest (which was also a great lesson in their camouflage skills).   Then their mom joined them, and we got a real appreciation for what a large cat this is!  She went for a dip in the river (unfortunately hidden by the vines) and then all three of them sunbathed for a while.  We didn't want to leave until they did -- hence the extra hour-plus to our morning ride.

Six jaguars, including four cubs, in our first two boat rides (and in less than 24 hours).  Our guides are as floored as we are!  

Mammal Day

 Wow. Just wow.

We drove today to Porto Jofre, a former fishing resort on the Cuiaba River that is now the starting point for boat trips to look for jaguars.  The dirt road from Pocone to Porto Jofre is 100 miles long with 120 bridges over the places that become streams or flooded during the rainy season.  We drove about 70 miles of the road today.  With two years of drought, most of those bridges are over dry ravines with parched plant life.  But periodically some water and marsh remain, and those spots are teeming with life, including the beautiful marsh deer pictured below. At another spot, we saw about a hundred Wood Storks roosting in the trees. 

We thought that the weather would cool a bit as we traveled southwest, but it was hot and dusty all the way; good thing this is early spring and not summer!  We left on our first boat ride mid afternoon, and we knew that it could take many hours over several days to see giant river otters, let alone a jaguar.  Within the first hour we saw a whole den of otters, and then a mother jaguar with two nursing cubs!!! Unbelievable. 

On our trip back at sunset, we saw two different kinds of fishing bats swooping all around our boat.  What an amazing day, and we have two more days filled with sunrise and sunset boat rides yet to go.  Our boat rides are in an open skiff, which gives a very different perspective on some of the water birds, for example the 4.5 foot tall Jabiru shown below. 

A good day and an amazing night

 We are so lucky! The flowers are blooming and fruiting trees like mangoes are ripening early, so we are seeing many more birds (both species and quantities) than is common for this trip.  As an example, we have probably seen 10 Toco Toucans and as many Aracari, just around the lodge; many trips hunt for days to see a single example of either.  Today we also got good views of brown capuchin monkeys, and watched capybara cautiously bathing in caiman-filled water. 

We forgot to mention in yesterday's entry that the temperature at lunchtime was 40 C.  Similar weather today, so our morning walk concluded by 10:30.  While it is quite dry and not buggy, it's still a hot sun and the pool feels good during the midday break.  Imagine our surprise to find two Hyacinth Macaws resting in a tree by the pool.  These are the largest parrots in the world and are listed as vulnerable and recovering, but are still rare to see here. 

Our night drive today was amazing.  We saw a lesser anteater and two Brazilian tapirs (both very unusual to see; our guides were quite excited to find them), as well as a rabbit, a crab-eating fox and 4 nocturnal birds.  We have now seen at least 116 species of birds, with two more completely different habitats to visit later in the trip.  Tomorrow we head to the central portion of the Pantanal at Porto Joffre. 

Pictured:  Lesser Collared Anteater, Brazilian Tapir, Hyacinth Macaws.

Birds birds birds

 We flew from Sao Paolo to Cuiaba this morning (about 2 hours).  We met our local guide (Tadeo) and our driver (Cesar), and drove 2.5 hours on bumpy paved roads followed by very bumpy dirt roads to our lodge in the northern Pantanal.  The last part of the drive was slow because we kept getting out to see and photograph the birds, caimans and capybaras at each little water hole along the road.  We saw 51 species of birds during the drive!  

Then at the lodge we were surrounded by parrots (5 kinds), toucans, hawks, woodpeckers and small songbirds.  There are caiman just beyond the pool and rhea in the front entrance meadow.  This part of the Pantanal suffered from dry conditions and wildfires in 2020, and so far 2021 is the driest in 150 years. This concentrates the water sources making it easier to view wildlife, but takes an enormous toll on the whole ecosystem. 

After a delicious home-style lunch and a siesta, we walked about a mile over raised boardwalks to watch the sun set from a fire tower; along the way we saw some additional birds and the elusive black-tailed marmoset.  

Pictured:  Green-barred Woodpecker, Chestnut-eared Aracari, Black-tailed Marmoset.

Sao Paolo

 Our flight to Sao Paolo was uneventful and the various immigration / health rules went surprisingly smoothly on the Brazilian end.  We learned a lot about the history of Sao Paolo and Brazil in general during our drive through morning rush hour traffic to the hotel. Did you know that Brazil had 10x as many African slaves as the US did (because of the sugar cane plantations in the early 19th century)?  Or that Brazil has the same land area as the continental US? Or that the largest Japanese community outside Japan is in Brazil?

After a late second breakfast-cum-lunch, we walked for several hours in a nearby park with a local birding expert.  We saw 35 different species (not bad for a drizzly afternoon), including 4 types of parrot (or parakeet or macaw), 3 kinds of woodpeckers, and a lot of waterfowl, some native and some introduced.

We had our welcome dinner with the rest of our group this evening.  There are only 5 tourists in the group including us, and this will be the first trip for our leader, Zapa, since March 2020.  The menu for dinner reflected the diverse nature of Sao Paolo -- sushi, middle eastern, south american, italian, with lots of seafood.  Tomorrow morning we head out before dawn to fly to the northern Pantanal and the real start of the trip.

Pictured: Narrow-billed Woodcreeper, White-faced Whistling-duck, and a Toco Toucan (which is common where we are headed but rare in the center of Sao Paolo; our local guide Marcos was very excited to see it). 

Heading to the Pantanals

 

I sure hope we'll be able to post such a photo of our own.  This one is from the itinerary page for our upcoming trip to the Pantanals of Brazil (and then an extension to Iguazu Falls).  Expect the first real posting on the evening of August 16, after we spend the afternoon in the Botanical Gardens in Sao Paolo. Thanks for coming along on the ride! 

Kevin and Katharine