What´s been happening since I last talked to you all: Part 2

This is a caiman. The alligators smaller cousin.
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So here I sit.  15 miles away from the Bolivian border.  The last 4 days have been quite an experience.  We left Bonito very early in the morning on a bus bound for some obsure building in the middle of nowhere on some random dirt road.  Seriously, we boarded a shoddy bus and bounced down a dirt road until arriving at an intersection with another dirt road.  At this point we exited the bus and got into an old VW van with some random guy.  I had no idea what was going on and I detected some sketchiness in the situation.  But I quickly learned that it was how they do things here.  So after bouncing down another dirt road for about 30 minutes we arrived at the ´Parque Hotel´.  This was the main are group of buidlings for the tour package we bought.  We unloaded our bags and went into the main office to talk to a man whom didn´t speak English.  After a few minutes of Jema speaking Jemanese (her concoction of Spanish, Portuguese and English), we found out about specific times and such.  About an hour later we changed into our bathing suits, climbed into a small boat, and headed upriver.  On the boatride we saw many different animals, including monkeys, caiman, marsh deer, capybara, toucans, macaws, and many other species of birds.  When we had gotten about a mile upriver, the guide had Jema and I climb into a canoe and we got to paddle/float back down river.  The canoe trip was quite interesting, as Jema and I put together weigh approximately 400 pounds, and the canoe we were in obviously was not rated for this amount of weight.  Neither of us have had much expirience with canoes, either, so we had many panic-stricken moments where we barely avoided tipping the canoe over.  In the end, however, we made it safely back to the hotel and changed back into our cloths.  We then hopped into the back of a pickup for our safari ride (aka shuttle to the farm where we would be staying).  I´m sure for the taxi-riding, briefcase carrying, decaf mocha latte drinking city folk riding in the back of a pickup in the jungle is a neat experience.  However, I am from Wyoming, where seeing someone riding in the back of a pickup is as common as seeing someone riding a bicycle.  But, we did see some more wildlife, mainly caimans (caimans in the Pantanal are like antelope in NE Wyoming), capybaras, and a plethora of birds to include toucans.  Let me tell you a little about the toucan.  These are nasty birds.  I asked our guide why they have such long beaks, and he told me this:  toucans have long beaks because their main source of food is baby birds of other species.  What they do is reach into the nest with the long beaks while the mother bird is away, grap the baby birds, and shake them back and forth vigorously like the T-Rex in ´Jurrasic Park`.  They are very mean birds that look innocent but really they will steal your babies, and kill them by shaking them to death.  So the next time you see Toucan Sam (on a box of Fruit Loops), don´t think they are cute and cuddly birds.  Because they´re not!!  Also, let me tell you about another bird called the caracara.  I used to think that vultures were the scum of the bird world because they are ugly and all they do is fly around scavenging for food; they never do any work.  Well, I have found out that the caracara is worse.  You see, after a vulture has eaten a meal, it needs to rest, so let things settle.  Just like a human cannot go swimming or running after a big meal, a vulture doesn´t fly.  Well, the caracara, when food is scarce, will seek out a vulture perched on a branch after a meal, and will attack the vulture so it starts flying around.  The caracara will chase the vulture until the vulture vomits its meal.  At this point the carcara stops chasing the vulture, seeks out the upchuck, and proceeds to eat it.  What kind of low life animal would make another animal puke up its food.  This is despicable behavior, but I guess it is expected in nature.  After our so-called safari we arrived at the fazenda, or farm, where we would be staying.  They fed us dinner, we played cards, and then retired to the sleeping quarters (with room for about 50 people).  We slept the night in hammocks, which were suprisingly comfortable.  The next morning we awoke early for breakfast.  After buttered bread and fruit, we mounted horses and went off on a more intimate tour of the pantanal.  Now let me tell you, I love riding horses.  It is one of my favorite activities.  Our horses were the pre-programmed follows-the-horse-in-front-of-it kind, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.  We saw lots of wildlife, but mainly caimans, giant storks, and cattle.  I have just realized I haven´t properly described the Pantanal.  It is a huge wetland.  Flat, with about a 50/50 mix of think vegetation and grassy plain.  Think Minnesota but covered in an average of a foot of water.  Anyway, the whole time the water level in which we were riding varied from 0 inches to about 4 feet.  It is weird how much water is here, and this is the dry season.  At the end of the ride our guide let us gallop our horses on a flat dry portion of land.  It was just Jema and I and we galloped our horses as the wind blew in our hair and I almost felt like I was riding on the Wyoming plain.  Anyway, we went back to the fazenda for lunch and a nap.  In the evening we fished for pirana in what the the guide told us would be a lake (actaully a pond).  My fishing skill/luck has always been sub-par, and this situation was no different.  Neither I nor Jema got anything, even though I could see the pirana about 3 feet underwater ripping chunks off my cube of beef.  The guide managed to catch fish after fish, which made me feel even less like fishing.  So, as soon as the sun dipped past the horizon, we headed back for the fazenda.  The next morning included a walk through the same area we rode horseback.  This was my least favorite part of the experience.  My guide insisted I go bare foot because I didn´t have sandals, and I forgot to apply bugspray before leaving the farm.  This caused me to get bitten by ants and misquitoes to the max.  Luckily for me, neither Dengue Fever nor Malaria are found in the Pantanal, so I presumably will not get sick.  On the whole, I´d say my Pantanal experience was worth the money but I would not go again.  I´ve seen pleny of wildlife in my day in Wyoming and other places around the US.  I believe the type of tour I went on was for the city dweller whom doesn´t know a cow from a crow or a mouse from a moose.  I would recommend it to a friend but realize you are being pushed down the tourist assembly line.  When we left the fazenda we were taken back to the random building along the dirt road and waited for the bus to come by.  When it did, we boarded for Corumba, which is where I am now.

Capybara. The largest rodent in the world. I saw ones about as big as a coyote.
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Yesterday we stayed in a pretty crappy hostel suggested to us by our not-anything-special Pantanal guide.  However, he wasn´t recommending it because it was a quality place to stay, he was recommending it because his friends owned it.  We put up with cold showers, paint falling off the walls, unfriendly staff, and stained sheets for one night.  So today we found a somewhat better hostel a few blocks away from the crappy one.  This new hostel looks and feels better but is run by a weird lady with coke-bottle glasses who looks like Olive Oil (Popeye´s girlfriend) and likes to practice her English with us.  We don´t like her to practice her Enlgish because it´s impossible for us to understand anything she is saying.  I mean, we understand the English words, but as far as the information she is trying to give us, we might as well be blind people trying to understand sign language.  We are going to stay here, though, because it´s only for tonight.  Tommorow morning we board a bus for the Bolivian border.  Once across, we board a train for Santa Cruz, then more buses to Peru.  Traveling across Bolivia will be intersting because they had an election today and are going through a political revolution.

I had no idea what was going on and I detected some sketchiness in the situation.

This is the Pantanal. A huge wetland about the size of Wyoming. In the wet season there is almost no dry land for miles and miles.
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Anyway, I´m going to sign off now.  I hope everyone had a great weekend.  And happy 4th of July to you all.  I wish I could be there for the fireworks, barbeque, and beer.  You all have fun and be safe!!!