Our driver was late. I could feel myself increasing in my agitation as I waited, and discovered that I was pacing without realising it. Ethan sat on the curb, still half asleep, unfamiliar with this time of the morning. We had left the Pantanal unwillingly the night before. I could honestly have stayed for weeks but my wallet had other ideas. Nevertheless, I had plenty to look forward to, for on the advice of our tour organiser, Martin, we had journeyed south to the town of Bonito. Now Bonito is a new town, barely a few decades old, towards the Brazilian border with Paraguay. As happens in the strange phenomena of the modern world, this town was built as a result of tourism, with the entire community acting as a host for the world’s explorers.
So after a hot, stuffy journey, followed by a confusing conversation with a coach driver, followed by us racing past a giant anteater without our driver even noticing (He was no Martin), we had arrived in Bonito in the early evening.
Enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, we made the most of our free evening by wandering the streets, eating pizza and drinking potent sangria. I was astounded. I had expected Brazil to be a place whose wilderness I adored, but whose cities I hated, but my experience of Rio De Janeiro, and now Bonito seemed to be challenging this perception. I just felt incredibly safe and fantastically relaxed. But after barely sleeping on the banks of the river the night before, we arrived back in the hotel and crashed. Looking at Ethan now, as we waited for our driver, we evidently hadn’t crashed enough.
After what felt like an age, a car pulled up and a little squat man got out.
I greeted him, asking him if he was our driver.
He greeted me and then said something in Portuguese.
I got out my booking confirmation from Martin and read him what was written.
He scrabbled around for his phone and then read me something in Portuguese.
Unfortunately, it appeared that he didn’t speak any English, and my Portuguese extends as far as:
“sente-se, por favor”
Which means,
“Please sit down!”
I didn’t feel this was going to speed up proceedings in any way.
In the end we decided it would be easier to just swap notes and read each others’ although this didn’t really help either as I can’t read Portuguese any better than I can speak it.
Finally, he scrolled and showed me my name written on his phone. Superb! We hopped on board.
It was only as the doors locked automatically as we drove off that I realised that if he had been ordered to abduct me he could have shown me my name and I’d have done exactly the same thing. In fact his silence may have been complete shock at having two such willing abductees.
Mercifully, he was not a kidnapper. Well I don’t know what he does in his spare time, but he didn’t kidnap us. Instead we sped out of the town and into the open country. The terrain here was different to the Pantanal. Far dryer and flatter, this was more of a pampas terrain that reminded me more of the East African Savannah than South America. Huge red termite mounds were scattered across the landscape. Large rhea were a common site by the side of the road and delightful little burrowing owl could be seen perched on fenceposts by the road side.
I was still pining the Pantanal, and feeling slightly regretful that we had not seen any tapir, but I was thankful to see that wildlife was still plentiful here. In fact, though I had given up on seeing any more larger animals, the reason we had come to Bonito, in part, was to further fulfil Ethan’s desire to photograph macaws. We were on our way to a sinkhole that had become home to a huge colony of Red and green macaws.
There was something in the road ahead of us but on the other carriageway. Cars were slowing down and going round it. I couldn’t really make out what it was, but it sort of looked like a tapir on it’s back.
To my complete shock, it was. Lying in the middle of the road was a tapir. And it was oh so very dead. Though it’s body looked undamaged from the outside, the poor critter had been hit by a truck and it lay there, wide eyed, it’s legs rigidly stuck out as if it had died whilst attempting a poorly timed star jump.
We were passed it in seconds and I had mixed emotions. Sad, that such a beautiful animal had met it’s end with such a crushing experience. Frustrated that if the driver had arrived on time we may have seen a very much more alive tapir. But also excited: tapir lived here, and who knew what else?
Buraco De Araras is a huge sandstone sinkhole in the middle of a large agricultural estate. When the land was first purchased, the owner had no idea that this huge subterranean hole even existed due to the tree cover around it, and when explored, the remains of a car were found smashed to smithereens at the bottom. Though it was filled with rubbish, the proprietor noticed that red and green macaws had colonised the sinkhole and decided to preserve it, paying for the removal of the landfill. It has since flourished, and a unique ecosystem has been born in this 500m caved-in cave.
As we were waiting for our personal guide, I could already hear the squabbling macaws in the trees around us, and occasionally spotted a flash of bright red. I also noticed pictures of other animals found on the reserve, and I was pleased to see that Tapir were on the list.
Our guide was a lovely Brazilian girl named Helena (pronounced El-ay-na). She proved to be great company and was extremely knowledgable and fluent in English. As the sun beat down down on us, it was a relief to enter the tree cover on the way to the crater. A few toucan flew overhead, and hummingbirds would occasionally dart across our path, but as we traipsed through the dry, crunchy leaf-litter, the raucous macawrus (do you like that? I like that) grew into a macawcophany (I like this more!). And as the tree cover dissipated and the sun beat down on us once again, the open mouth of the world opened up before us.
Nestled in the crevices, and perched on ledges, the macaws were making use of every available nesting space. Here, their rude calling echoed and reverberated, bouncing of the sheer walls. Some of them were clasped onto the rock, using their beaks to help hold them in place. Just below us sat a young one, probably recently fledged while our guide pointed out an active nest, tucked away to our right. But the most spectacular sight came when they took off.
We are very familiar with the underside of birds as they fly. As a keen naturalist, I can identify a large number of British birds just from their shape as I see them fly over my head. It is very rare that you get to look down upon a bird in flight, but this was not a problem here. As the macaws would take off and soar beneath us, the bright plumage on their backs caught the light and became almost iridescent. They are called Red and Green macaws, but this doesn’t do them justice, as they seem to display a full spectrum. The top of their heads were a bright scarlett, stretching down their napes and across the shoulders. This was met by a thin strip of vivid green, unnoticeable when stationary but unmissable as it caught the sun’s rays like a well cut emerald. The tips of the wings were a dark navy, almost purple in places, gradually becoming paler through the wing until it was a radiant turquoise that ran down most of it’s core, it’s tail feathers mixed with some red and orange. Against the back drop of the deep red rock and the pale green of the subterranean lake, the onslaught of colour was almost offensive to the senses, to the extent that Ethan found focussing his camera on the macaws difficult.
Beneath the macaws, we could see signs that the crater functioned as it’s own unique little world. In the distance, we could see a few capuchin monkeys raiding the trees, as well as a variety of other birds.
As we soaked it in, I thought now would be a good time to ask about Tapir.
“Oh you saw the sign?” Helena giggled. “Yes, we need to change that.”
“Oh right,” I said, slightly disappointed, “Does that mean there aren’t any?”
“Well there was,” she smiled cryptically, “but not any more.”
“So they don’t come here any more?” I clarified.
“Well they could. But we haven’t seen one recently. You see, there used to be one that we would see here quite a lot.”
“And what happened to him?”
Our guide didn’t say anything, she merely looked down into the sinkhole.
“We think something spooked him in the night,” she said, trying to offer a reasonable explanation.
“Whatever happened, we found him at the bottom of the hole.”
I wondered how spooked I’d need to be to run headlong into a 500m wide, 100m deep chasm. What could possibly have been scarier than plummeting head-first into a gaping hole in the ground. Perhaps, he had heard about his friend on the road this morning? Or perhaps tapir just aren’t the brightest of sparks?
I was running out of tapir that I could actually see.
The view from the other side of the sinkhole was just as impressive. This time positioned just above the trees, were were further away from the nesting macaws, and able to appreciate them more as group. Our guide also pointed out the nest of a small Laughing Falcon, peeping from between the rocks. The silence was broken, however, by a crash behind us. Two agouti, quite shamelessly came crashing out of the bushes in some sort of aggressive and clamorous mating ritual. I have to say it was difficult to concentrate of the serenity of the sight to the sound of amorous rodents but as we turned around to see the commotion, we noticed quite a few macaws sat in one of the tress just further down the path. A pool of water had gathered in one of the hollows of a tree and one by one they were dipping their heads in before throwing them back to aid their swallow. Unlike the Hyacinth macaws, these ones had a bald face, bright white, and up close, you could see how different they were. Each movement seemed quite slow and considered, every loud squark preceded and followed by quiet chit-chat and murmurings that are inaudible from a distance. It was lovely to see them interact with one another, caressing each other with their beaks, grooming one another and occasionally rubbing their beaks like a little eskimo-kiss. Each one would wait it’s turn to drink before making way for another to take a sip.
“Hey look!” Our guide hissed at us sharply.
To our right, a slender and sleek deer was ambling down the bare-earth path towards us.
Helena motioned at us to stay silent and still.
It was evidently a young deer, bright and beautiful in the light. It’s steps were dainty and elegant, it’s nose testing the air for danger. It’s nose was evidently blocked, because despite it’s caution it walked to within about five metres of us. Or perhaps, it just knew we posed it no danger.
“I have never seen one before,” Helena could barely contain her excitement, “let alone this close.”
Behind us, something scrabbled across the path.
Watching the macaws and the deer had taken far longer than I had thought and we our tour had massively overrun.
“Do you mind if we go find what that was?” We asked, trying not to sound to desperate.
“Haha, ok, but we need to be quick!” This, alone made me write a glowing report for her on our feedback form.
To my great surprise, right next to the path, we found an armadillo. We had seen two species in the Pantanal from a distance, but this one was happily digging just one metre from the path.
“My goodness, you boys are very lucky today.” I think Helena was not used to seeing anything other than macaws. But she was beaming: this was good news!
The armadillo was frantically digging, it’s whole body bouncing with the effort, it’s long, stiff tail wagging. Every-so-often it would wriggle it’s way back out and stare at us, before returning to the job at hand. I wondered what had made it choose this patch of dirt, of all places, to start digging a hole. But whatever reason, he was lucky he got there so fast because within minutes, as our guide was about to wrap up the tour, another armadillo turned up. I’m not sure she could quite believe what she was seeing. Neither could I.
We left with big smiles on our faces.
I was hot. Uncomfortably hot. The sun was intent on doing harm today and there were no clouds in sight so that a shimmering mirage would appear just above the baked ground. Not ideal conditions for a Brit used to wearing shorts and a t-shirt in 15 degree cloud cover, my discomfort was exacerbated by the fact that I was wearing a wetsuit. Unfortunately, at the present, it was wetter inside than out.
Of course you are all wondering why?
The answer is of course because I was sweating, not because I was peeing.
Oh, you weren’t asking that question. Ok.
The rivers of Bonito have become famous with wildlife watchers over the last decade. Unlike the vast majority of rivers, the waters of the Rio da Prata are crystal clear and warm: perfect for snorkelling. We had arrived at a picturesque ranch sprawled on a hillside, our minibus bouncing across the lumpy dirt tracks. From here we got a better sight of the burrowing owls, as they hopped comically along the floor by the side of the bus, serious looking with wide eyes or frowns.
After a short break to relax, we were ordered into wetsuits and put aboard another open-topped truck for a short ride to, what I presumed would be the river. In the open air, cooled by the movement of air on the back of the truck, I was just about comfortable. But as we disembarked and were told we were going on a short trek to the river, my heart very literally sank in what I will now call my sweatsuit.
The shade provided by the trees as we entered the jungle was a short-lived mercy. Though they protected us from the burning rays of the sun, it was completely ineffective in our battle with humidity. Though my face and my shins were exposed, the rest of my body felt as if it was being slowly broiled, as if I was wearing some bespoke pressure-cooker. Very thoughtfully, our guide decided to stop and explain everything we saw along the way in Portuguese and stilted-English. I was quite surprised to see a lobster being cooked up ahead, until I realised that the bright red creature in front of me was just a rotund German man. Even the sighting of some more agouti did not manage to arrest my attention. My only focus at this point was trying not to melt into a irritable puddle of British etiquette on the floor.
All of a sudden our guide froze and whispered something in Portuguese. People oohed and ahhed quietly, peering through the trees. I oozed and ached instead, unable to see what everyone else was looking at. Quite frankly, I didn’t care.
Thankfully our guide noticed that Ethan and I were completely unaware of what was going on.
He pointed into the bush and smiled, “Tapir.”
From semiconscious hallucinations to hyper alertness in a second, my eyes focussed. Sure enough, expertly camouflaged in the leaf litter sat a huge tapir. My recollection of seeing tapir in a zoo meant that I was expecting something the size of a donkey. But my recollections were obviously completely wrong, this tapir was about the size of a small cow. I couldn’t quite believe it. Having been convinced that our departure from the Pantanal was the end of our chances of seeing one, to see one sitting only a few metres away in broad daylight, I was in a state of shock.
Ethan looked frustrated.
“I don’t have my camera!” He almost spat the words regretfully. Understandably, he had no intention of taking his several-thousand pound camera for a bath. I frantically tried to take a photograph with my Gopro, but as you can see from the picture below, I was less than successful!
Nevertheless, despite my hyperthermic trance, I was elated. Tick!
We were standing on the edge of the river, on a wooden platform. The water was crystal clear and in my delirium it felt as if it was calling to me, inviting me to dive headfirst into it’s cool embrace. I could feel the sweat flowing down my back and my legs, and even my forehead and neck were dripping so much I was worried I would become a cheap alternative to Niagara Falls. But there was already a group ahead of us, and slowly, painfully slowly, they were being coaxed into the water.
I was beginning to worry that I’d run out of water and start sweating blood when our guide mercifully started handing out snorkels and masks. One by one, nonchalantly and carefully, he explained to each individual how to put it on and tighten it. Several times he stopped to show somebody for a second time, some people decided that this particular mask would not do, and so swapped it for an almost identical one.
Now I had been a clever clogs. I already own a snorkel mask, which I had brought with me. Unlike the horrible masks that clasp your face as if it’s trying to steal your soul, this is a full face mask and is extremely comfortable. Having used one in Bermuda, I had vowed to take one with me wherever I went.
“Ok, please everybody, put on your masks now.” Our guide was keen to prepare us.
It was not long before I realised my mistake. Putting on my full-face mask was like wearing a greenhouse on my face. Covering my entire face, and warming it up further with my scarily dry breath, my suffering felt almost cruel. I was here by choice. I was so thankful. And I was so uncomfortable I would have been crying if my tear ducts hadn’t been desiccated ages ago.
And just as I thought that my time had come, our guide decided to give us a safety briefing that was about as necessary as 80% of the letters in the word “queue”. By the time it was over, queueing was out of the question. Entering the water was utter bliss.
I have snorkelled quite a few times before and I have always enjoyed it. And despite the fact that it is essentially exactly the same, snorkelling down a river felt very different. Firstly, there is a very obvious current. For much of the time, I simply needed to float and allow the river to take me where it pleased. Every now and then, I would need to stiffen to avoid touching the river bed, not wanting to damage the beautiful ecosystem that existed here. Secondly, there was a lot of vegetation. Where I have snorkelled in the past, St.Lucia and Barbados in the Caribbean, Borneo and Bermuda, I have seen coral, but very little vegetation and needing to avoid few obstacles. In the Rio da Prata, there were great swathes of vegetation, floating platforms of life under which thousands of fish would congregate, enjoying the shade and the safety. Sharp, jagged rocks would also line the way, as well as fallen tree branches, all adding to the sense of adventure.
Thirdly, spotted across the river bed, hot springs would rise, bubbling out of the sand and giving you a brief blast of warm water. They were quite disorientating to look into as they bubbled, a small vortex of activity that had an almost hypnotic effect.
And the fish life was plentiful. Large silver fish hanging still in the water, smaller red fish darting in and out of the plant cover, stripe fish swarmed around us and spotted fish swam close to the river bed. Every now and then we would see a large brown sucker fish attached to a rock or a submerged log. I could go on, but I would sound like a Dr Seuss book.
"Be careful!" Our guide called out to me, but with my head under water, I couldn't hear what he had said.
"Huh?" I lifted my head to see what he was saying, simultaneously smashing my knee into a rock.
Knees are painful things. For something so hard and knobbly, they are as sensitive as a sixteen year old after they've just had a particularly daring haircut.
"I said be careful," bemoaned our guide, very helpfully. I didn't want to point out that if he'd said nothing at all I probably would still be in tact. And then I realised why he had said it.
Not five metres further were rapids. Thankfully, our instructors arm grabbed me and lifted me out of the water.
"Waterfall!" he said, grinning. Well, I could see that now!
It turned out that we had to walk the next bit, avoiding the rapids. But boy did my knee hurt.
"OK?" Our instructor noticed me limping.
"I bashed my knee." I explained. "On a rock," as if this would help.
He prodded my knee, sending searing pain up my leg. I yelped.
"Your knee?" he asked with the smile of someone who thinks they've discovered the problem. "I think you hit on a rock, no?"
"Yes," I gasped, not sure if it was worth trying to say anything else.
He looked me up and down.
"You're ok. Tough guy!" he laughed.
He clearly didn't know me very well.
As I floated down this pristine waterway, enjoying exploring every crook and creek, it struck me that being told to snorkel does most of the worlds rivers would be more of a punishment than a pleasure. In our carelessness and our pursuit of money, we have turned most of the worlds rivers into pollution drains and open sewers, replacing fish with plastic and stolen shopping trollies. And what a shame this is, because as I soaked up the view around me, I could fully appreciate for the first time what beautiful environments rivers are. I would highly recommend snorkelling in one. But maybe not the Thames.
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