Pantanal Safari - Day 4 - To Chapada dos Guimarães

Today marks our last day in the Pantanal, and we make our way to our next destination: Chapada dos Guimarães. It’s another national park about 1 hour from Cuiabá and has fantastic red rocks formation and a lot of waterfalls.

We have one last activity this morning: horse riding. I booked this without telling Alexis – he is not too pleased at first, because of our last experience in Colombia, but these horses are properly trained and it’s a game changer.  These 2 hours riding in the reserve were very enjoyable. We never went into a trot or canter; the horses were very responsive to simple commands and very even-tempered. We got to see some wildlife and had a great time.

Since we started this fairly early, we still have the rest of the morning to enjoy Pousada Piuval facilities. We take a quick dip in the pool and swing in the hammocks until Lunch.

Once the checkout is all done, we start the road back to Cuiabá, and then the extra hour to Chapada town and our next accommodation. After we pass Cuiaba, we drive along a long straight road and a forest fire is raging by the roadside, we see the planes offloading products onto the blaze. It’s quite close to us, and traffic is normal. Jean mentions that it’s common during the dry season, all it takes is a cigarette bud – and unfortunately, he has seen too many just throwing them off their car window without a care. Once we pass the forest front, we have a few km of desolated blackened earth and skeletal trees.

As we near the cliff, we get to see this beautiful red colored rocks. The entire plateau has these jagged rock wall and with the late afternoon orange light, it’s stunning. The place seems to be famous for river swimming, there are a lot of small restaurant and swimming areas along the road to the cliffs.

We get up the plateau and finally reach our destination. It’s the first time Jean stays in the guesthouse we have for the night. We reach a long and narrow dirt path and drive through for a good 10min before finally reaching a small entry in the bush. Noone is there, and there is no cellphone reception, we shout and clap hoping someone would come but to no avail. Jean starts walking in the nearby bush looking for a neighbor and after a short while comes back with a lady that starts shouting with us the owner’s names. It’s very clear no one is home, but we finally managed to get some network and the owner on the phone. She directs us to the back of her house where the guest rooms are. Nothing is locked… so we get settled quickly before heading to town for diner.

As we drive through the dirt path, suddenly Alexis screams: Stop! A Tapir ! And there, by the fence is one. Like 2m away -looking right at us as if confused. He is not spooked, so we get some good pictures and observe. Then, he seems to shake himself off and just run into the woods. What are the odds ? We got so lucky again today !

In town, there is a festival going on and some roads are blocked. We decide to park on the street and walk our way to the center. As we passed by the entrance of the festivities, we go inside to check it out, there are a lot of food stands and two huge scenes. The festival starts today, and we watch a documentary about the region and some officials’ speeches before we decide we have enough. The music is not starting until late and we are hungry. 

We are eating in a nearby Italian restaurant. This is something that I liked about this tour, whenever we are not eating in a Pousada, we are just eating at any normal restaurants and not a tourist-only place. Also, the guide eats with us and we can chit chat.

Diner is finished quite quickly and as the night is still young, we walk around the main square and the city’s church, which was built in 1776. An evening mass is ongoing and the door is wide open. We sit in the back benches for a little while to see the inside. 

After that it’s time to go back and as soon as we hit the dirt road again – I keep my eyes wide open. You never know! We didn’t get to see any more wildlife – but I am still so happy with our earlier Tapir encounter!