A nice day for nice people

But we have to move on, because our destination is in the Pantanal. After a couple of domestic flights the guide of Araras Ecolodge is waiting for us at the airport in Cuiaba. He will be our guide for the next five days. There are no other people, so we have a private guide for ourselves. And another one with an enormous knowledge of birds and there are quite a few of them in the Pantanal. Not entirely green on bird watching, we eventually spot over a hundred species we haven't seen before. What a feast! Where my husband is a real birdwatcher, mammals are my favourite and I am not disappointed either; capybaras, monkeys, coati's, agouti's, guinea pigs, tapirs, otters, anteaters. And then, of course, the thousands of caimans; they are photogenic and not scary at all . We see the hyacinth macaw in abundance. In the wild, but also in the lodge, because that is where Blu, the house macaw, lives. He was part of a programme to return captured birds to the wild, but refuses to leave. As our guide said: "I don't think Blu knows he is a blue macaw". Other highlights of our days in the Pantanal are undoubtedly the discovery of two anacondas. Even for the most seasoned guide, this is special, as they are spotted at most twice a year.

On the last full day we go in search of the jaguar. For that we have to go even deeper into the Pantanal. First for an hour or two by car and then on a boat to explore the river. After seven hours of searching, if we start to lose courage, we finally get a signal over the radio that one has been spotted in about twenty minutes of sailing. A female who is busy hunting along the riverbank. We see her sneaking up on capybaras from the long grass, but secretly I am a little relieved that the capybaras are always on time with the jaguar. For a full hour we can follow her along the bank. What a mighty beast. Much bigger than her cousin, the African leopard. Satisfied we return home, to the lodge. The Araras Ecolodge is a beautiful place and an excellent choice of Petra, our travel specialist at Sapa Pana Travel. Nice rooms (with air conditioning), sweet people and delicious food. And above all a beautiful environment. We just spot most of the animals on the grounds of the lodge. Sitting quietly on the terrace the wildlife passes you by.

As icing on the cake, we fly on to Iguaçu. The waterfalls on the border with Argentina. We arrive at night and when we wake up the next morning it is cloudy. We quickly walk to the waterfalls and find them beautiful and impressive, but we are not as lyrical as we read in the booklets. In the course of the morning our guide comes to pick us up for a trip to the Argentine side of the waterfalls. On the way he stops at a huge tax-free shop, so we can buy a shirt of the Brazilian the football team for the home front. When we arrive at the waterfalls the sun breaks through and a breathtaking sight is created. Rainbows and sparkles everywhere. Perhaps one of the most beautiful things we have ever seen. We are almost a little moved. We have a nice conversation with the guide about the sun that makes everything so much more beautiful and we refer to the primal Dutch proverb: The sun rises for nothing. He tells us that people in Brazil look at it in a different way. They say: "A nice day for nice people". Well, we fully agree with that.