Pantanal Safari - Day 3 - Jackpot day !

Can everyday be better than yesterday in the Pantanal ? Yes, it can !

While we were already astonished and impressed at all we could see the past two days. Today certainly caps it off.

We start at 5 am, again in search of the giant anteater, it’s a nocturnal animal. Our best changes are at dusk and dawn for a good observation. It’s a couple of fields on the edge of the forest. Dotted around the pastures are these giant termite mounds. It’s what they eat.

Our jeep is for now the only one out and we move very slowly. The giant is shy and would sprint away as soon as it sees us. After a good 10min on a crawl with the jeep – jean spots one ( quite far – I really don’t know how he does it ). It’s at the opposite end of a field. 

We start ninja crouching our way closer, trying to hide behind trees and termite mounds, doing our best to stay out of his sight. We get a fair distance before he spots us and start to move towards the tree covers. So we stop. He stops. We use the binoculars to get a good look at him for a good 5min, before he decides to hide in the bushes.

As we walk back to the car, the pousada’s jeep with a group of hardcode photographs arrives. They missed it and continue on. We had seen something in the trees on a nearby pasture. We decide to investigate. Jean thinks it’s a porcupine. We squeeze through the fence and get closer to the tree.

Surprise! It’s the small anteater – the one that can climb trees and eat the ants or termite that have their nests up there. It’s sleeping curled up in a ball. 

Because we were our nose in the air, another jeep with a group from the Pousada decides to stop next to us and the guests all come to check what we found. As they take pictures, we retreat and head back again for the car until – another giant ant eaters shows itself right by the fences! Everyone freezes, it’s so close. We hear the clicks of the cameras. I got some really good pictures and as we were closer to the fence and our way out – he passed closest to us. We didn’t have to move. We are so lucky!

That was the highlight of our early morning ride. Of course, we saw a lot of other great animals like the toucans, a fox like a meter away from us, vultures and eagles. 

We are back at our accommodation for breakfast, but it’s a short one. We are almost immediately out to walk in the forest. But first, we go back where the first giant anteaters was, because I dropped my sunglasses there while we were crouching our way through the field. We spend 5min looking around without success. I will need to buy a new pair.

The walk through the forest has for aim to see the Hyacinth Macaw. There are a few nests. On our way through the trees, we got to see a Coati and some other beautiful woodpeckers. ( very colorful ones !). Of course we see what we came for, there were around in the early morning. We continue our walk passing by a tree full of Capuchins before finding a 12m high observation tower. 

Once we had a good look at the reserve from up there, it’s time to walk back to the car. On this way, we pay more attention to the insects. There were traces of termites, and ants’ tracks.

Our morning visits are done, and it’s about 10 am. The sun is high and hot now, and as we learned from yesterday – all the animals are hiding now. Our next outing will be at 3:30pm, which leaves us a lot of time to enjoy the Pousada’s facilities. There is a great swimming pool – and I take a dip. Then I go back to my lonely corner of the property, where I saw so much yesterday. I set myself in the hammock and doze on and off. I got to see a couple of cute and colorful birds from my vantage point.

Our afternoon activity comes pretty soon and we are back in the jeep to explore another corner of the reserve that we haven’t been before. It’s a larger body of water, absolutely full of Caiman. There are also a lot of vultures hanging around ( like hundreds of them ). And another tree by this large pond has about 30 or so white egrets. Jean tells us that if we stay quiet and wait, sometimes the giant otters come and swim there. There is a small bench in the shade of a bush. We enjoy the silence and hope for visitors.

We didn’t get any, but we saw them yesterday, so that’s alright. It’s possibly the closest we got so far from the Caiman, and we got some really good pictures of them.

During the rest of the ride, we encountered a lot of predatory birds with their prey. We also saw giant shelf of snails – there was a pile under a wooden pillar. It’s where an eagle eats, then he lets the shells fall on the ground. There was quite a collection, along with some crab pieces.

I didn’t expect this, but we also saw a tortoise – it had red scales on its legs and yellow colors on its head. 

The new bird that we discovered during this ride was the buff necked Ibis. They had a gorgeous gold colored neck and black and white wings. Stunningly beautiful but very shy. I never got a good picture of them. We observed them mostly using the binoculars.

We are barely back to the reception and 30min later, our night visit starts. Except that instead of doing it with Jean’s pick up truck, we will be with the hotel and the group. Except that as we arrive at the meeting time, we end up being the only ones. Luck is still on our side. The hotel pickup truck as a great light, much more powerful than the ones Jean uses. Jean hopes that we can see a small feline. We shouldn’t get our hopes up. 

We drive for maybe 45min, and get to see a few cute rabbits and a few foxes. And then, as we just take a sharp turn: Jaguar ! A huge one is by the road side. We immediately stop. He starts to go back into the forest, but then – and to our delight – seems to decide otherwise. As we observe, we realize he was trying to hunt a deer that is on the other side of the pasture. We watch him try for it – and fail.  

In the end, the jaguar stays around for a good 10 to 15min before getting back to where we first saw him – and a second jaguar comes out ! We later learned that it was a she, and the second jaguar was her 1 year old son. They cross very quickly the pasture and we lose them then. 
This was exceptional, today was a just incredible. Jean tells us that we woke up with a lot of luck today. To see 2 giant anteaters and the jaguar, plus the Tapir ( which is very shy ) – we are blessed indeed.

The Pantanal has been magical so far. I can’t wait for what the next two days will reveal !