Week 42: The Pantanal

On the first day of week 42 we had to go on 3 plane flights just to get to a place called Brazil! So after getting a new stamp in my passport we went to a food place called Pizza Hut🍕. But it wasn’t just a normal Pizza Hut, it was an all you can eat Pizza Hut!🍴I got so many pizza slices I think I may have eaten more than dad! It was so good I couldn’t stop. There should have been a stop sign screaming at me saying stop stop!🛑 Then we went to our nice hotel before going to a very exciting place.

The next day we drove to a place called the Pantanal. This place was so far, but so worth it. This place was the place to see jaguars in the wild. If we don’t see jaguars in the wild here, then we won’t see them ever! No pressure on the company. It was meant to be a 5 hour drive to get there. It ended up being 6 hours! On the way we saw so many animals. There were caymans, pink birds but not flamingoes, ou-ous, an otter, more caymans, rat things, lizards, hawks, eagles, egrets, capybaras, cows, yellow warblers, a macaw, toucans, and even MORE caymans! It was absolutely amazing. If you’re wandering what ou-ous are they are these massive birds that look like flamingoes, frigate birds and a pelican all mixed together! They are as tall as a flamingo, has a puff on it’s neck like a frigate, and has the coulors and shape of a pelican. They are so cool.

It the middle of our drive mum and I wrote “CLEAN ME :)!” on the back of our car that we rented😂. Then when we arrived we were so happy but a little bit sad. We were a little bit sad because our first adventure was over. But other than that everything at the accomodation was amazing👌. The second we arrived there, there was a capybara, a macaw and a few more toucans! At that one second we knew that we were going to love it there.

The next day we had breakfast then went out to go hunting for jaguars. We were on a boat for 5 whole hours. It was 38′! It was so hot. We were just cruising and then we saw a lot of boats, and lots of people going ooh and ah. So our driver decided to go over there. We started to try and see what the people were looking at. And then dad said “wow it’s a jaguar!”! Then I got really excited. But it still took me another minute to realise that there was literally a jaguar in front of me. And then I said “Oh my gosh, it’s a jaguar”😂.It was so beautiful and camouflaged. I called it Joanna. She had a ridiculous amount of spots, and was as quiet as a mouse. She was hunting for caymans and swimming to cool off. She had every skill that you could ever think of. Sadly we never saw her get a cayman, even though we watched her for several hours.

Then we had to go back home for lunch. All of that happened in one little morning! Then after lunch we went out again on the boat for another 5 hours. And you wouldn’t believe what we saw. We saw more otters, another jaguar and heaps of caymans. These otters were playing with each other for ages. They had much more energy than I did. Especially because I was just soo hot I started putting ice cubes from the esky on me! Anyway, this jaguar was sleeping like it was 2am in the morning. She was so tired. Every time she got up every one in the boats would get excited. And then she would just collapse onto the floor, and make every one go “oh man”😂. Then I needed to go to the toilet, so we went to the baños natural (natural toilet). On the way we saw these caymans in the most funniest moves. One looked like it had just heard a really funny joke. One did a dive bomb. And another one looked like it was about to explode! It was very funny. I’d say it was a pretty good bathroom trip.

The next day we went on another boat trip around the river. We saw a jaguar swimming in the water hunting for food while trying to get to the other side of the river! It was so crazy. He was so deep that we could only see less than a quarter of his body. Then when he got to the other side we couldn’t see him. So then we went in the opposite direction. And we saw 3 otters! They were swimming in the water making the most irritating noises! It sounded like they had just seen a ghost. I nearly got a headache it was so annoying. Then we headed back to the reserve to have lunch.

Then we went out AGAIN! We saw another jaguar, a lot of caymans and so many cool types of birds! The jaguar was literally walking right towards us. Then it sat down 10 metres away from us! It was one very friendly jaguar. We stayed there for a few hours, watch the sun go to sleep and eat dinner. There was one pretty weird thing that happened when we were speeding to get away from the sun. We were going very fast so there was bugs and bats flying into our arms. It was pretty normal. And yes I said that a bat flew into my arm! It really hurt. After it stopped hurting we all started laughing about it. It was one amazing day.

I took all of these photos of the jaguar below 👇🏻.

Then next we sadly had to leave the Pantanal. Luckily we got a few hours to go in the pool. We played lots of games, saw some toucans flying by, and a family of capybaras just surrounded us. It was just another day it the Pantanal.

Then we had to sadly leave. We had to do the 5 hour drive again, get an overnight bus ride to a pace called Bonito. We have never ever been there before. So it was quite exciting. It was also very exciting because of our bus that we were going on for the night. The chairs went so far back, they gave you snacks, (cookies, crackers, and a yummy jam thing), a blanket and pillow, and free water! It was so nice. We got an amazing sleep 😴.

Fun facts

What place in the world has the biggest population of jaguars?

Answer: Amazon rainforest and the Pantanal. We have been to both of those places!

How many caymans are in the Pantanal in Brazil (basil)🌿?

Answer: There is around 10 million caymans!🐊

How many countries have jaguars around the world?

Answer: They are located in 18 countries! We have been to five of those countries and going to go to another one! And that one is for you to find out in December.

Game Time

Try and find the jaguar!👇🏻

Clue: It’s on the right side of the photo, hidden in the bushes 🤫.