(G): When ‘we’ organised this trip, I kind of thought the Pantanal [map] would be a bit like a South American safari, a bit like this but with jaguars and caimen and anacondas. It isn’t. It’s a haven for every biting, stinging, creeping, crawling beast under the sun. And it’s *hot*. So hot, Lloydy considered it necessary to jump into the local river Typhoid to cool off.
Our guide for the next two days is a 5’ 4’’ hard-as-nails Crocodile Dundee character (complete with Bowie knife strapped to waist), called Alex. Alex plainly loves his job – mostly, it seems, because of the evident amusement he derives from seeing Western tourists in acute discomfort; flapping at bugs, hiding from the sun and sweating profusely.
The accommodation at Passo do Lontro is novel too – a 40-person hammock shed, ‘protected’ from mozzies by tattered screens and dependent on fellow travellers to close the doors coming in and out. Actually, the facilities are the thing I’m least despondent about, there’s (occasionally) flushing loos, cold showers, and the sleeping arrangements are original.
Now all we need is one, tiny, redeeming feature about the surroundings…
(L): Well, what do you expect to see out of a Torquay bedroom Passo do Lontro hut window? The hangings gardens of Babylon perhaps? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain?
I made a very positive attempt in my head to like our new home. Even with its sweltering squalor, and beasties. So I stripped off and splashed around in the murky brown river, pretending that it was an infinity pool, and that the sun was shining, and there weren’t horrid bits of flotsam and jetsam floating down the river past me, and someone was just about to appear with an ice cold martini. To my credit, methinks, my positive mental attitude lasted until supper time: We sat eating our inescapable rice and beans [sigh] in the ‘dining shed’, with the multitude of buzzing bugs hanging cloudlike above us. I was uber-hot, so I foolishly switched on a ceiling fan. In a fraction of a second the creepy-crawly cloud was propelled onto us and our plates. ‘Extra protein’ someone quipped as they picked a beetle out of their dinner.
November 3, 2009 at 9:53 pm |
How did you sleep? x
January 15, 2010 at 7:33 pm |
[...] Well, there’s been ups and there’s been downs, but it’s never been boring. We’ve been fantastically fortunate to have been able to [...]