In the Pantanal...

Spent 4 days and 3 nights in a place in Brazil close to the border to Bolivia called the Pantanal. This big territory is famous for it's wildlife. You can see many caimans, birds, capybara (= water pig), spiders, snakes...
It is more or less a very flat landscape with wide open plains and forests. 

During the rainy season a lot of the region is flooded, the best time to see also jaguars and anacondas. And during the dry season the big lakes become small ponds, where all kind of fishes and caimans are fighting to survive until the rain is coming again...

After a long bus/pickup-truck trip from Campo Grande, i arrived on the Fazenda "Arara Azul". The range is in the middle of nowhere but therefore pretty relaxing...
Every day we did 2-3 activities like a night-safari with the pickup-truck,
a 2h tracking tour around the Fazenda, where we almost got killed by the f**king mosquitoes and the burning sun. But hey, at least we saw some dears and monkeys...

My personal highlight was the horseback riding one afternoon. I have never ride a horse before but together with 2 nice girls from Norway and Anaconda (our guide) we had a lot of fun... And they assured me that i am doing quite well for my first time on a horse (Cowboy-Raphi! Cowboy-Raphi! Cowboy-Raphi! :-) ). Although i was jumping up and down on the back of my horse like crazy everytime we start galloping... :-)
And after the ride it hurts on certain parts of your body, if you know what i mean... ;-)

One morning we went piranha fishing. It was not that interesting, because i already did it in the Amazon jungle. So i spent more time with watching the sunrise, taking lots of pictures. One of the most beautifulest things here in the Pantanal...

We fed the caimans next to our fazenda with the piranhas we caught. For Anaconda (guide) they are like his dogs. They always come, when he is calling them, and he was playing with them using a wooden stick on a fishing rod, like playing with a dog.

On a boat trip we heard a jaguar roaring pretty close to us, while we were fishing in the river.
But unfortunately we never saw him, only loads of caimans...
And you really have to take care that you are not fishing a 3m caiman instead of the fish by accident... :-)

After those relaxing days i went to Bonito.
-> The name of the small town means "The Beauty or beautiful" if you translate it from Portuguese...