Ilha do Mel

Well this was my last big trip in Brazil. From Tuesday (18/11/08) till Saturday (22/11/08) i spent my days on Ilha do Mel (Honey Island) which is basically east of Curitiba down the river Parana and then in the harbour on the coast where the river flows into. Curitiba is built on a mountain plateau and so you basically take a bus (there is a train as well but didn't take it) down from the mountains to the sea. The trip to the sea is very nice with steep mountains filled with rainforest. The bus took me to Pontal do Sul which is the closest town to the island on the mainland. From there i then took a ferry across to Nova Brasilia (see map), which was a nice trip. Once there I went off to locate the Pousada where I had reserved a room. The thing is that Ilha Do Mel has no roads (no cars, not even motorbikes) only sort of tracks made of sand and because there are no street names it isn't that easy to find what your looking for. The fact that Ilha do Mel is basically 'pousada island', with every second house being a pousada didn't make things easier (there must be more than 70 pousadas on the island, but only about 7 of them have websites). When I eventually did find it there didn't seem to be anyone there and it didn't really look that nice, so I returned to a Pousada & restaurant place which a local told me was reasonably cheap and got myself a room there. This turned out to be quite handy as i had only to walk out of my door and i was basically at a restaurant where i had dinner every night. After i had unpacked some of my things it was into my togs and off to the beach. The beaches here aren't very crowded in fact most of the time you've got the whole beach to yourself. Still somehow I had a bit of fear leaving my stuff lying on the beach while I went for a swim. I guess this is because of the stories that you hear about the beaches in Rio de Janeiro, so I am a bit annoyed at myself that I didn't go swimming as much as i would have liked when really I think that this sort of thing doesn't really happen much here. Anyway, I went for a swim anyway but not before i had made myself nice and sweaty walking up a hill to a light house called Farol das Conchas in the hot afternoon sun. From the top of the the hill I saw big ships (container ships, oil tankers, etc) out to sea waiting for their turn to come into the harbour, I counted 17 big ships! After my swim I decided to boulder (ie climb over, along, and up rocks) round the headland where the lighthouse was situated. It went pretty good until near the end where no good options were available. At first i tried going up but then met what turned out to be a problem all over the island, lots of plants with big spikes which were unavoidable and very sore. So I took the other option of jumping in and wading ashore. Luckily the water was already shallow enough so that i could wade but the hidden rocks under the water and the waves coming in were a bit tricky. But I made it back to the pousada and soon had myself a good feed, a good read of my book, and a good sleep.
The next morning i decide to walk to the village of Encantadas (see map). You basically walk along the beaches and enjoy the sun and the water. Because I got a sunburn last time I went walking around in my togs, I decided that this time it would be different, and so I slapped on the sunscreen. Maybe it was the fact that the water washed away the sunscreen (it said on the bottle that it was "very water resistant") or it just didn't work, by the time I got to Encantadas I was a bit sun burnt. I thought light was supposed to reflect off white surfaces? I'm white, but doesn't seem to reflect off me! Anyway, the walk was still very nice and I had a good swim. Even managed to catch some nice waves to go body surfing, a bodyboard or surfboard would have been better but oh well. Once I was in Encantadas I had some lunch (and bought some batteries that actually worked, Yippeeeee!!!!) and went to check the advertised sights, ie the Grutas das Encantadas. This was basically an average sized cave in a cliff and the sea goes into it. Wasn't that exciting so decided to take some silly photos instead. In fact the legends about the cave are probably more exciting, something about mermaids enchanting anyone who comes near to the cave with their singing. Real mermaids would have made the site a bit more exciting but these sort of things never stick around to the present day, ah well. So off I went to climb some more rocks and take a few more photos and watch the big ships coming in and out of the harbour. After that I wandered slowly back to Nova Brasilia and that was basically that.
The next day I had planned to walk around the northern half of the island, so off I went to check out Ilha do Mel's remaining tourist site and enjoy sun, sand, and water. Yet when I got to the beach I got a nasty surprise. There were these little insects that basically looked like a house fly but, boy could they bit! These little blood suckers were all along the beach and didn't seem to care a bit about insect repellent although I sprayed the stuff all over me so i just about choked. Yet I decided to press on hoping that they would eventually disappear. I then made it to Fortaleza de NS dos Prazeres which is an old fort with big guns and stuff. It would have been nicer if I didn't have to swat flys with one hand while taking pictures with the other hand. After I felt that I had enough photos to make it a worthwhile trip I decided that I'd had enough and vowed that I would spend the rest of my days on the island in the southern half of the island. So I stormed back to base camp with muttering murderously laughing evilly every time I squished one of those blood sucking §$%*#! So after lunch I decide that some more bouldering would be a good idea and headed of to the headland just north of Praia Grande. This was pretty awesome fun although I got too close to a young seagull and the whole seagull family went nuts so I ran for shelter as i expected missiles were soon going to be flying. Surprisingly no missiles were fired and i went on my way. At one point I got a bit stuck with one option being to go up the cliff and walk amongst the prickly plants and the other option was to jump across a crevice and land on a nice flat rock, but which happened to be a a reasonably fair way down (or at least it seemed like it) and the last option was to go back the way i had come. I quickly dismissed the prickly plant idea and I didn't want to come this far and have to go back. So after a short prayer and thinking that it isn't really very smart to be doing this by yourself on an island where nobody knows who or where you are, i jumped. It hurt my feet a bit but otherwise it was good, and so i carried on. When I arrived back on the beach i spent the rest of the afternoon wandering round the beaches and feeling I'd done a good afternoon's work.
The next day (Friday) I decided that I liked bouldering round here so much that I decided to take on Ponta da Nha Pina. The day started off nice and sunny like the other days round here and I decided that for a warm up I would go round the same headland as yesterday. Yet this time it didn't go as well. The seagull mum was there again and this time she started swooping at me and also fired off a shot which luckily missed me. When I got to the place where i did my big leap, I thought "I've done it once, I can do it again". Yet this time I landed on my heel with my left foot and is still quite sore even now while I'm writing this. Yet I decided i would continue with my plan and just try to keep on the balls of my feet and not do any more jumping. But Ponta da Nha Pina is quite a bit harder than my previous bouldering expeditions and about 15mins in I got to a place where i had to climb over a big steep rock. I probably could have made it but the handholds were just a bit dodgy so with quite a bit of Ummming and Ahhhing and some regret I turned back. By this time it was also starting to get a bit windy and there was a bit of drizzle every now and again. I then found a path where I could access the shoreline further along and so I continued my bouldering excursion. This part was really good fun with just the right amount of difficulty and nice views. Yet eventually I came to great big vertical wall with the ocean churning beneath and I had to follow a path away from the shoreline. I scrambled round from the other side of the point to the same wall but went back and decided that that was enough for today, and anyway the weather was getting worse. I went to Encantadas and got myself some food and then started to walk back home. Just as i was leaving Encantadas it started to rain and get quite cold. As I was only wearing shorts and t-shirt I found some shelter and listened to my mp3 player for a few hours then when it had settled down a bit a walked home.
Saturday the weather wasn't much better although there were a few times when the weather was fine, even with a bit of sun. I basically packed my things and got the boat back to Pontal do Sul. There I still had a bit of a wait till my bus left, so i went down to the beach and made a sand jacare. Then it was back up the mountains to Curitiba.
The video is a woodpecker.

Pantanal 2

Well carrying on from where i left off, I left Bonito bright and early on Tuesday morning on a bus heading north up to a little town called Miranda. The bus trip was a bit slow because it was mainly gravel road. When I got there I wandered to the Hotel next door which I had been planning to stay at and which supposedly wasn't too expensive. The people at the desk didn't speak any English so I bumbled over the Portuguese words that I knew to make myself understood, I found out that actually the hotel was a bit above my budget so off I went to use a pay phone to ring my bro Patrik. I always have trouble with the pay phones here, cos you always seem to have to first put in numbers that aren't written anywhere on the phonecard and only the locals seem to know what these numbers are. Anyway, with Patrik's help I was able to find a Pousada (inn) that was a bit cheaper and I wondered off to look for it after getting some directions from a local who surprisingly spoke English. I had just about got there when a guy walks across the street towards me, and in quite good English (obviously I am quite an obvious tourist) says "Hi, you ok, can I help you". I explained that I was just going to the Pousada Aguas do Pantanal. When he heard my accent he immediately asked where I was from, and when he heard that I was from New Zealand he was most pleased. He had lived in New Zealand for a year and had learnt his English there. Me and Marcus (that was his name) aka "croc" went to the Pousada together seeing he was going to talk to someone there anyway. The people at the Pousada didn't really speak English so it was good that I had a translator. After about an hour (they took ages working out the different prices for everything) I was sorted for the next 48 hours with lots of tourist activities. So after a walk round the town and some icecream off I went on a mototaxi to a Fazenda (farm/ranch) called Cacimba de Pedra (www.cacimbadepedra.com.br), a jacare (cayman) farm. When I got there I was greeted by a man that spoke English and I found out that I was the only visitor there at the moment. The guy who spoke English wandered off somewhere after he had had introduced me to the owner of the fazenda and my guide for the afternoon. My guide didn't speak a word of English so now I was really going to have to use every bit of portugese that I knew and of course my pocket dictionary came out quite frequently. So we went and checked out the thousands of baby jacare that they have and took some pictures (one of them did a pee on me). Then we went off to see the big ones and also feed them a bit of meat (check out video). After that we went back to the farmhouse and had some Terere which is made by putting some sort of crushed tea leaves into a cow horn and then adding cold water and then suck this up with a silver straw type of thing. So I had a good time chatting (very slowly, but hey) to my guide, and the owner and his daughter(I presume, didn't actually ask), while passing round the tea horn and everyone having a suck. I was then shown the farm buildings and then it was time for dinner. This was very good and of course jacare was on the menu. After that it was back to the Pousada by mototaxi for a nights sleep.
The next day I spent the morning sleeping and swimming in the pool. After lunch I was wisked off by mototaxi to another Fazenda called Fazenda San Francisco. I was just beginning to think i was again the only tourist and having trouble speaking to the lady at reception when who should show up but the couple from Bonito where the guy translated for me and his wife at the snake place. Yip, I've certainly been blessed quite a few times on this trip with English speakers at just the right time. So after finding my nice flash room (with air conditioning, it was very, very hot)I had lunch then went for a swim and then we went on a boat trip. We saw quite a few birds and my first capivara, which is the biggest rodent in the world, but has no tail and mainly eats plants. We then went piranha fishing which I somehow wasn't that good at but still caught a few fish. While we were fishing we were watched by a one-eyed jacare which we later fed some of the fish we caught. Going back we fed some more jacares (see video) and then our guide called some birds, two falcons, or some bird like that, and a king fisher, who he feed by chucking the fish into the water and then the birds would grab them (check out video). Then we came back for an afternoon tea of piranha soup, terere, popcorn, and cake while an emu wandered around trying to get a bite to eat and we fed a parrot some of the popcorn. Then later I had another marvelous dinner after which we then went on a night safari. Unfortunatly we didn't see a jaguar, just lots of of jacare and capivaras, however we did see an ocelot and a fox. The ocelot was trying to eat a baby jacare.
The next day i had a good breakfast and then went on another safari. We saw an anteater with a baby on it's back! We also saw lots of birds; shags, hawks, storks, and lots of other birds. Then it was back to Miranda by mototaxi. After discussing for a while what I could do with the rest of my time here with the people back at the pousada, it was decided to ring Marcus and see what he was up to. So later on that day i found myself in the back of a ute with Marcus and his mates to go to a "swimming hole". Well it was an irrigation channel but hey good enough. It was right next to the road and the irrigation channel passed underneath the road by two big pipes. It was decided that we should go through them. It took quite a while for the guys to get the courage to go through it because they were a bit scared that there might be an anaconda or some other nasty in there but eventually they got going (I would have gone first but thought if there really was something there I'd probably be the one with the least experience of dealing with such things). It was sort of like a water slide except with a bit more water, so that you had to hold your breath for the first few seconds. Later on that day I then had a good feed with Marcus and his mates at a nice little restaurant (the meat is so good here). One of his mates is an English guy called Stewart who Marcus met in New Zealand and now has been living with Marcus in Miranda for the last 5 months teaching English. After our feed Marcus and Stewart said that they had to go and teach English now, so I said I'd come along. The funny thing was that they were teaching some of the staff at the hotel that I had first visited when i first got to Miranda. It was quite good fun and the guy that i worked with was making some good progress. Then after we finished teaching we headed off to the gym which is not really the best place to be when its that hot, even though it was 10:30 at night. Quite a bit of time was spent at the drinking fountain. After this we went and bought some fresh orange juice and then called it a night. The next day the tour that I was going to go on was canceled, and after looking at my other options I realised that most of them were far too expensive, so I spent the day swimming in the pool, going for a walk, and then I met Marcus in the supermarket just as I was about to buy some lunch. So off we went to his house where his Mum had prepared a good feed. After that Marcus had to help out some tourists that had come to his family's fazenda which was closed for repairs that week. So we led them to another fazenda and I went along for the ride. After this Marcus had to work so I ended up having a lazy afternoon. The next day it was back to Campo Grande on the bus and then a flight back to Curitiba (which was delayed by an hour) where Patrik picked me up.
(Note: the small photos were not taken by me but just thought I'd stick them in so you get the idea, the batteries for my camera weren't working very well so I wasn't able to get all the photos I would have liked to have have got.)

Pantanal 1

Well, this last week I have been away in the biggest wetland/flood plain in the world called the Pantanal. I left Curitiba early Friday morning (31/8/08) by plane to a city called Campo Grande. When I arrived at the airport I had about an hour for me to get to the bus station to catch a bus to my next destination, Bonito. I decided to catch a town bus into town but seeing I had no bus timetable and I didn't know how long the trip into town takes this wasn't such a good idea. After waiting a good 30 mins and wondering when the bus would ever get there, I arrived at the bus station with about ten mins to spare. It is quite a big place (buses are the main mode of long distance transportation in Brazil) and I wasn't sure where to find the bus company that runs the service to Bonito. Obviously I look very much like a tourist and it wasn't long before someone came up to me and asked me in good English, if I wanted to book a tour. I told him that I was in a bit of a hurry, but if he could help me find the bus company ticket office, that would be appreciated. In record time he found the right ticket office got the ticket and I was on my way.
On the bus I met 3 young Israeli guys and two American girls. When we got to Bonito there was a guy from Hostelling International so we all piled into his VW van and drove off to the Hostel.
Later on that evening The Israeli guys said that they would be making spaghetti bolognese and invited me and the American girls to join them. The Israeli's knew about as much Portugese as I did but the girls both spoke good Spanish so they could talk to most people and translate for us. The next day the six of us went biked (not really such a good idea because it's very hot) to the local swimming area (we had to pay R$10 to get in but I have a sneaky suspicion that the locals get in free). A lot of the rivers around Bonito have crystal clear water that comes from springs with some sort of minerals that makes all the dirt sink to the bottom of the river, and contain a lot of fish. So we had a great lazy day swimming, watching fish, snorkeling, playing soccer with the locals, and playing cards. Unfortunately I forgot to put on sunscreen which was really stupid because I got a nice big sun burn on my back which hurt for the next few days. That evening we decided to try the local cuisine and I had my first taste of cayman (alligator) meat. The next day we went to visit a cave that had stalictites and stalicmites and a lake which was a flourescent blue colour because of some sort of mineral. It wasn't that exciting but still ok and anyway it was the cheapest option and the girls weren't that keen on spending too much money. In the afternoon it rained so we didn't end up doing too much. The others were leaving the next day but I decided to stay one more day and do some more snorkeling. I went to on a tour called Rio de Prata and although I don't have any photos to prove it, it was really amazing. It was like swimming in an aquarium. There were lots of different types of fish and there were lots of them. I can now also say that I've been swimming with caymans, although I never saw them but our guide said he saw 2. Afterwards we had an excellent feed which was part of the tour price. The meat in the Pantanal is really really good. I had to make the most of having to pay so much money, so I stuffed myself.
After that we went to this big sink hole where you can see quite a few Macaws (the biggest parrot in the world). In the evening I went to visit the Boa constrictor project place. There the guy who runs it gave an informative talk to the small crowd while a snake was crawling all over him. There was a Brazilian guy there with his English wife there on holiday so he was able to translate, although the guy who runs it could also speak good English. After that we all got photos taken with the snake and then he got a live rat and chucked it into the same cage as a snake, the snake wasn't that hungry and the rat bit the snake a few times and the snake bit the rat a few times, so the guy got a snake that was hungry and put that in the cage and that was the end of the rat.
This is the first installment of my trip. Sorry I don't have that many photos from this trip. The batteries here in Brazil are absolutely useless. I bought every new type of battery that I could find. The first four brands only one brand worked sometimes. On my second to last day in the Pantanal I bought a pair of energizer batteries that seem to work good, but by then it was a bit too late. The group photo is me with the Americans and Israelis (left to right): Durban, Rebecca, Tal, Alon, Amir, and me. The video and the parrot were taken at the local swimming place, the woodpecker at the sinkhole and me with the snake at the snake place.