We had thought long and hard about whether to visit the North or South Pantanal. The big attraction of the Pantanal is the opportunity to see wildlife and the biggest attraction for most people is the opportunity to see Jaguars. The area around Porto Jofre, in the north, has the reputation of being the place to go if you want to see Jaguars, with a far higher chance of seeing one than in the south, where all the guides we looked at suggested there was only a small chance of seeing a Jaguar. On the other hand, we were concerned that the North looked crowded, with some photos and videos showing lots of boats surrounding a Jaguar. Besides that, although we were booking well in advance, a lot of places were already booked up at the time we wanted to go. We decided that the South was the more attractive option, and chose the Fazenda Barranco Alto, on the banks of the Rio Negro, for a seven night stay. It was a great choice!
To get to the Pantanal we flew from São Paulo to Campo Grande, which is the largest city in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. It’s an impressive place with a population of around a million people. We have to admit that we hadn’t heard of it before. We stayed the night there and embarked on the five hour drive to the Pantanal the next day. The latter part of the journey was off road and was pretty rough.
Fazenda Barranco Alto
Fazenda Barranco Alto is a working farm…with cowboys! A wide variety of activities are on offer, including horse riding, hiking, boat trips, canoeing, fishing and game drives in open vehicles. We settled into a routine of a morning boat trip with afternoon and evening drives to give us the best chance of seeing and photographing the wildlife. A canoe trip was also a real highlight, but photography is easier from the boats. On a few trips we had another couple with us but most of the time it was just us with a couple of staff from the Fazenda. All of the staff were fantastic – enthusiastic and knowledgeable. We felt particularly lucky to spend most of our time with Fabrício and Iza.
The rooms were comfortable, the food was excellent and the caipirinhas were much appreciated. Perfect!
We really appreciated the fact that the river was so quiet. Only once did we see a boat from another property, it came as quite a surprise! This is about the busiest it got, with other guests at the Fazenda enjoying a canoe trip:
Around the Fazenda
In the evening
The Wildlife
The sheer variety of animal life we saw was exceptional. Every trip out was full of exciting encounters. Trying to capture the excitement of it all in photographs was a challenge. My identification skills aren’t so great though, in some cases I’ve used the Merlin app from CornellLab to help with bird identification (captions are generally visible when you click on an image in a gallery). We’ll continue to refine things.
Roseate Spoonbills
We’d enjoyed seeing Spoonbills before, both in the UK and Senegal, so we had been very keen to see Roseate Spoonbills in Brazil. We had excellent sightings every day in the Pantanal.
Giant Otters
The Giant Otters were the unexpected highlight of the trip. Whether on the banks or in the river they were noisy, curious and entertaining. I was very happy to get a sequence of photos of one eating a fish.
Rufous Tailed Jacamar
Anteaters
We had some quite incredible encounters with anteaters. With the wind blowing in the right direction we were able to get very close to them on foot; in fact we didn’t have to move, an anteater came right up to Annette. My telephoto lens was pretty much useless because we were so close to them. The other disadvantage is that there were some pretty angry ants around, making life a bit uncomfortable for us.
On the drive back to Campo Grande, we saw an anteater carrying its baby on its back, and I was able to grab a quick picture.
Armadillo
Kingfishers
Jaguar
For the first few days it seemed as though a jaguar was appearing for the other guests at the Fazenda, but we were out of luck. Then, when we were out in the boat one morning, we had an excellent sighting.
Sunbittern
Caimans
Herons, Cormorants and Egrets
Capybaras
This is the main reason that I (Annette) wanted to come to the Pantanal! Until then, I had only seen them in captivity (plus a quick glimpse from a taxi of capybaras wandering around a park in Campo Grande). I identify very strongly with these gorgeous giant rodents – I felt that I could hang out with them in the river all day!
Gray-cowled Wood-Rail
Macaws and Parakeets
Large Billed Tern and Black Skimmer
Toco Toucan
Jabiru
Tapirs
Bare-faced Curassow
Deer
Bare-faced Ibis
Peccaries
White-throated Piping-Guan ?
Ocelot
Owls
We saw the biggest and smallest owls within a couple of minutes of each other.
Fox
More birds
Heading back to Campo Grande
At least we got to see another Anteater on the drive back. From Campo Grande we went to São Paulo for another couple of nights before flying home. All in all, a completely fabulous trip.
Peregrinamur 