Brazil; cities and the Pantanal

After visiting Africa multiple times I finally got to see my beloved cats;  cheetahs and leopards. But, there are more cats on this planet. The Pantanal in Brazil is home to the jaguar, a cat very similar to the leopard but a little bit bigger and even more elusive I guess. Visiting the world’s fifth largest country, I might as well add some cities to the itinerary in order to obtain a better view of the country.

I noticed this trip report was getting fairly long and therefore decided to make a report only about Brazil and most likely another one about Bolivia and Peru combined. Also, I have to admit the report is a bit late but my laptop had some issues. In case you were wondering…

My adventure started at the airport in Buenos Aires. I took an early shuttle so I’d be able to relax at the airport. However, when I checked in at the Emirates desk, there was no relaxing anymore. “Sir, do you have a ticket out of Brazil?”, nope. “Then you can’t fly with us.” If this would be the immigration service I can somehow imagine this could happen but this is only an airline. Mind your own business!

I still had to book a ticket though so I ran to the only internet café where I looked for a bus ticket for the journey I intended to make from Cuiabá in Brazil to Santa Cruz in Bolivia. I couldn’t find any online, so I started looking for flights. The overland trip would be a much better adventure in my opinion but I had no options at this point. I found a cheap flight from Sao Paulo to Bolivia with Boa Airlines and I started to relax. I didn’t want to go to Sao Paulo at all but at least I had found an affordable flight. Unfortunately however, the site was not working correctly and the phone was not answered, so I couldn’t book the flight. I had about 30 minutes left before check-in closed. I started shaking and could barely type, but I really had to book a ticket. Finally the website of TAM airlines, which didn’t work either in earlier stages, worked and I booked a ticket from Sao Paulo to La Paz. On top of that I had to book a flight from Cuiabá to Sao Paulo as well. Instead of traveling overland from the Pantanal, a national park bordering Bolivia, I now had to fly Eastwards to Sao Paulo before flying to Santiago de Chile and finally to la Paz. Emirates has won several awards but I’m not sure if I still like them…

I arrived in Rio de Janeiro, needless to say in a terrible mood, late at night and took a taxi because all the other options were not available. I had an unexpectedly warm welcome at the Discovery hostel where I checked in. They had a lovely cat so I couldn’t go straight to bed…

My main goal in Rio was to visit a match of one of the famous football clubs of both the city and the country. Rio has four big clubs and three of them were playing at home during my stay. Fluminense, Flamengo and Vasco da Gama were all within reach, only Botofoga (the club Clarence Seedorf is playing for) played away. I was looking forward to enjoy the infamous atmosphere in one of the stadiums. The Maracana, the most famous stadium of Brazil and possibly of the world too, was closed because of renovations for the world-cup, so I had to go to another stadium instead. Unfortunately it turned out that all the other stadiums in Rio, yes all the other stadiums, had safety issues and therefore the home matches were played somewhere else. Flamengo played in Florianopolis, roughly 750 kilometres away. Both Fluminense and Vasco played in Volta Redonda, 130 km from Rio. No problem to get there but getting back in the middle of the night is a problem. No football match for me this time…

Time to explore other parts of the city. The best sights the city has to offer are outdoors. Think about the many beaches like Ipanema and Copacabana to name just a few. Furthermore there are mountains to explore, for example Sugarloaf, Pico da Tijuca and Corcovado. I traveled to Rio in the so-called dry season but for some reason mother nature decided to do things differently. It puked for more than two days in a row, Sunday to Tuesday. Monday the museums are closed in Rio so there wasn’t a whole lot to explore. Tuesday I decided to give it a go and went for a hike regardless of the weather. If there is a god, and let’s assume there is for the sake of this story, it seems like he had one message for me: Paul, you shouldn’t have gone to Brazil!

In the morning two German ladies talked about the news of a German guy who got killed in one of the favelas (a favela is a slum area where the poor people from Rio had to move to when tourists took over the beaches). Javier, a Chilean guy in the hostel, and myself thought it was very naive of this German guy to wander around in a favela on his own. Roughly an hour later, Javier and myself found us driving through a favela in a local bus. Exactly, the same guys who thought it was stupid and naive. Luckily we didn’t found ourselves penetrated with bullets and 20 minutes later we entered Tijuca national park. This park is said to be the largest urban rainforest in the world and it was quite spectacular. Walking around made you feel like you’re in another world, not in a huge city at least. After more than an hour of walking on the main road we arrived at the beginning of the trail to Pico da Tijuca. The sign at the entrance mentioned there are snakes around in the park and that scared Javier quite a bit. I pretended I didn’t care. After a nice walk we arrived at the top where the view was…well…cloudy. Normally one should have a great view of the city below, this time the weather prevented us from seeing anything. At least we had a good workout.

In the evening we went to see some live music Brazil is so famous for. There are many bars around with all sorts of music. Many of them are quite fancy with big shows and corresponding entrance fees. I had found a little place through the internet though that made me curious. Javier agreed to check it out. Bip Bip, the name of the little bar, is more of a social project than a commercial bar. Every night musicians perform different types of music on a voluntary basis. This night some Choro and Fogo (two types of rhythms) were being played at Bip Bip. Revenues are spent on special projects in the surrounding area and tips are not allowed. The bar is so small that people have to sit outside to enjoy the music. A special place if you’d ask me!

Of course I also tried to enjoy some good food again. A very common type of restaurant found in Brazil is one where you pay by the weight. It’s like a huge buffet where you can choose all kinds of food. It’s not unlimited though because at the end you put your plate on the weighing machine. A nice way to enjoy a varied meal and the weighing machine prevents one from eating too much. One night I tried some Mexican food. During this trip I started to enjoy burritos and fajitas, so I had to eat some in Rio too. Azteka’s had good reviews and they were correct. I had the best burrito so far. After a decent search on the internet I also found an indoor market with many imported goods. Among those goods were many Belgian beers too. At the Farinha Pura market they sold Maredsous, Westmalle, St. Bernardus, Trappist Roquefort, Tripel Karmeliet and many more. After Westmalle in Vietnam, Maredsous in Cambodia and Montevideo and St. Bernardus in Madrid, I enjoyed a Tripel Karmeliet this time. It was delicious!

After four days in Rio I left the city and flew into Cuiabá to start my “hunt for the jaguars” in the Pantanal. On arrival in Cuiabá I found out I had booked my return ticket one day too late. Wow, when I start making those kind of mistakes who knows what we will experience this trip. On the other hand, I also had a possible extra day to find the elusive cat…

Tito, my guide, picked me up on the airport and we drove to the Jaguar lodge. An hour drive from Cuiabá takes you to Poconé from where you’ll soon arrive at the Pantaneira highway, a 135 km dirtroad. Along this road multiple accommodations can be found. The first part of the “highway” is known for having some good birdwatching. In case you want to look for the jaguar it’s best though to stay as far as possible on the highway, closest to the Cuiabá river. The dry season had just started and therefore the territory of the jaguar is limited to the riverbanks. Chances of finding the cat alongside the road are very small. The Jaguar lodge is located at 110 km on the highway, a good base. The first morning I walked around for about 10 km with Tito. We saw a couple of giant otters, funny animals but difficult to follow, and some birds before it became too hot. A cold winter day over here means it will be 30 degrees Celcius at 9 am. Time to get the sweaters out!

In the afternoon we took a gamedrive. When you have been to Africa, the gamedrives are very disappointing. The straight road is very boring and you don’t see many animals. At least we found a beautiful snake on the road before we went back to the lodge.

The next day was supposed to be the big day. A full day on the river together with two other guests who arrived the night before. Eight hours in a small boat were spent on the Cuiabá river to find the jaguar. Unfortunately without any results. I slept terrible the night before because I had bats and frogs in my room so it was difficult to stay awake in the boat. The river felt wild though with many caimans and capibaras around. A great adventure with a negative result. The next day I was about the leave the Pantanal after breakfast and return to Cuiabá. Did I fly all the way and spent so much money to not find the jaguar?

I talked to the guide, Tim (Tito had to leave) and tried to squeeze in another boattrip before returning to Cuiabá. My flight was booked for the next day so no restrictions there. After some negotiations with the manager, I finally booked another boattrip. In the evening we would all drive back to Cuiabá in the safari-truck which is really not comfortable at all but I wanted to see a jaguar. No choice there. We left the lodge on “jaguar-Sunday” and drove to the river again where we boarded a nice speedboat, much better than the day before. In nearly 45 minutes we, the boatdriver, guide and myself, arrived at the “Three brothers” river which is the main territory of the jaguars. Two hours later we explored two of the three brothers without any result and decided to stop for lunch. On the riverbank we found fresh tracks of the elusive cat but nothing more than that. A couple minutes later another boat passed by and informed us of a jaguar sighting. We quickly packed our stuff and jumped back on the river. We checked all the riverbanks before Tim spotted the big cat! We followed the cat for about 20 minutes. He didn’t seem to like our presence as he was looking for a nice siesta. We, on the other hand, wanted to see as much as possible. This area of the Pantanal has roughly 50 jaguars and 25 of them wear a collar. Unfortunately this one wore a collar but I guess I can’t complain after finding one of the cats in such a big and remote area.

Soon after the sighting we headed back to the lodge where a nasty drive in the truck waited in order to get us back to Poconé and finally Cuiabá. We ate multiple thousands of mosquitoes along the way and made it safely back to civilization. Funny how things work out sometimes; if I had booked my flight on the intented date I would have missed the jaguar. Let’s call it a fortunate mistake…

After a day of chilling out in Cuiabá I boarded a flight to Sao Paulo. Whereas Rio de Janeiro is known for its beauty and many sights, Sao Paulo is said to be a boring industrial city. With low expectations I checked in at the Dom Hostel in the Northern part of this big city (the 7th biggest city in the world in terms of population with over 11 million inhabitants). The next day I checked out the Catedral da Sé, the Mercado Municipal and the Museo do futebol at the stadium of Corinthians, Pacaembu. The church was pretty average but the market was really nice. Many nice stands in a historical building where I enjoyed a typical lunch, Bacalhau hocca (a fried pastry filled with codfish). The museum of futebol was really big stating the importance of this sport in Brazilian culture. It was nice to see a museum completely dedicated to one sport and I got a view into the Pacaembu stadium too!

Even though I only spent one full day in the biggest city of Brazil, I liked it much more than Rio de Janeiro. In Rio you constantly have to watch over your shoulders and be careful not to end up in the wrong neighborhood whereas Sao Paulo has a much friendlier feel. In Rio the most important thing seems to be the way you look, probably because of the many beaches where you have to show yourself. Don´t expect to have a good conversation there. People talk about football and football. When they´re in a really intellectual mode…no, they will still talk about football. One dimensional would be a good description if you´d ask me. Rio also attracts many many tourists of a specific type if you know what I mean. Sao Paulo lacks the beautiful geographical location with its beaches and is not known for the big carnaval and nightlife (although it probably rivals Rio in that aspect too) and therefore it has a much more local feel. I liked it. Of course the highlight of my visit to Brazil was my encounter with the jaguar.

All in all it was a very expensive part of the trip but at least I have a little impression of this famous country. I didn´t like everything (that must be one of my famous understatements…) but I achieved my goal, seeing another big cat!

At three o’clock in the morning a taxi brought me to the bus terminal where I caught a bus to Guarulhos airport. A long flight via Chile would bring me to one of the highest cities in the world, la Paz.

Click here to see more pictures of my trip to Brazil!