The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Nineteen

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Chapter Nineteen

Door to Door Flight to the Jaguars

 

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

 – Augustine of Hippo

 

 

 

If you’ve ever gone anywhere on a jet plane, then you know the drill.  

 

You get to the terminal, endure the check in and baggage lines, walk a few miles to the gate, and wait.   Finally, they board the plane.    And there’s all that hassle with the overhead bins, and electronics, and such. 

 

The plane lands, you unbuckle, you grab the hand carry from under the seat in front of you.

 

Then you wait.   And wait.    Finally, they let passengers off the plane and you wait your turn again.   You get your hand carry out of the bins above and trudge down the aisle, so very happy that your legs are holding you  up after umpteen hours crammed in a narrow seat.

 

Disembark, walk a half mile or so to pick up your checked baggage.   Go outside and wait for a taxi or a hotel van to take you to the hotel.   Go through all the rigamarole of checking in.   Finally!    Go to your room and collapse.

 

 

Or, if you’re really, really lucky and you were on the trip I made through Brazil, this is how it happens:

But wait!   I have one short story to tell before we leave Fazenda Barranco Alto.   

I opened the main door of our cottage one day and something fluttered right outside.   Looking down, I saw a small bird that appeared to be too young to be out of the nest.  I stepped over it and closed the door.

Narrow-billed wood creeper nestling

It immediately huddled against the door.  Little guy won't stand a chance out here, I decided, and went to pick it up.   It scrambled up the door and then fell again to the ground.

I picked it up and placed it on the trunk of the huge mango tree in the courtyard, when it scrambled up the tree.

On the morning we were to leave, I found that little bird on the trunk of the tree.   It seemed fine, assuming it was the same one and I choose to believe so.

The little narrow-billed wood creeper I saved.

I snapped a photo and while looking for other birds on the tree, tripped over the paver bricks and fell to the ground.  

Keep your eye on the paver bricks and look for boards at the same time?   Impossible, so down I went.

The gals came rushing over, saying "I HEARD you fall."   I was fine.   Maybe a bruise and a scrape, but otherwise uninjured and happy about the little bird, which was a Narrow-billed Wood Creeper.

Now back to my story about better ways to travel:

 

Get up late.   Make sure everything is packed.  Have breakfast late.   Check out consists of saying goodbye to staff and paying your laundry bill if you have one.

 

Walk through the nearby opening in the fence and climb into the small plane that landed on the grass right outside the fence.

The single engine luggage plane.   Note the fence at far left.

I couldn't get a photo of the plane in which we four traveled.   They were hurrying me to load.

 

Settle in with the provided water and snacks.

 

Our destination is the Hotel Porto Jofre and the plane lands right outside the brick wall!    Climb out of the plane.   Luggage is handled by staff and delivered to our rooms.

 

 

We follow an escort to our rooms.  No check-in.   It was handled ahead of time.

To the cottages.

Three beds!   And a nice desk with outlets for battery chargers, laptops, etc.   The blinds are panels of bamboo (?) that slide horizontally.   Love them.

Fridge, lots of room for "stuff".

Nice bathroom, complete with frogs.

 

Ah, time for lunch.   And then!   A game drive on the Cuiaba River and the search for jaguars will begin.

 

 

Each cottage has two large rooms.   Virginia is in the room next to mine and Laura and Shelly have the two rooms in the next cottage.

The River Cuiaba from my patio.

The dock on the Cuiaba river

Note the homemade anchor in the bow.   The plants in the river a water hyacinth.   There are a lot of them here.

And upstream we go.   Or was it down?   Hard to tell when the boat is going at Ferrari speed and you're hanging onto everything you own. 

 

Especially your hat.  That hat that Shelly caught once.   That hat that Octavio caught the second time.   And the same one on the same afternoon that landed in the Cuiaba River.   It took a couple days until I got smart and used a camera strap to tether it to a belt loop.

Soon we come to a line of boats with the passengers starting intently at the heavily vegetated river bank.   We can see the brush and grasses moving.

And then!    My first sighting of a jaguar!    And there goes the refund Octavio promised me if I didn't see any jaguars.

We stay with her for a long time as she prowls the riverbank, hunting for caimans.   Incredibly, jaguars love water, unlike the other wild cats around the globe.

Sometimes she walks the bank, sometimes she swims through the water hyacinth where caimans are most likely lurking.

We join the line of boats watching for the jaguar.   She is a 2-year-old known as Marcela.    She is easily identifiable  by a notch in one ear and the tip of her tail is missing.    The legend among the boat drivers is that piranha got to her.

About three o'clock we join a flotilla of other boats and start a long three hours of waiting for two sleeping male jaguars to do something.   We can see one but the other is beyond a pile of dead brush.

When you see close ups of birds and animals, don't make the mistake of thinking we were right up in their faces.   This is how far away we anchored from the two males that I took photos of below with my 500 mm lens.   One is between the two piles of dead branches.

 Octavio drops our anchor  there we sit in the blazingly hot sun.   Soon the umbrellas come out to give us some shade.    They are better than having a roof over the boat.

The sleeping male looks to have eaten recently and I have no hope that he will do anything more than sleep, but I was wrong.

First, he rose to bite an itch.

Then, he straightened up.

Then, he laid back down.

Once, he made eye contact while lying on his back.

Whew!    Such action.   But that's the life of wildlife photographers.   Wait and wait and wait and hop for a split second of action.

Just a few of the boats watching the jaguars.   I counted 19, but I'm not sure I saw all of them.   Octavio is getting water out of the cooler for us.

I entertain myself with the kingfishers that are landing nearby.

Green kingfisher

Green kingfisher.

Other boats begin to leave when the clock nears 6 PM.   Some pull their anchors or untie from other boats.

We put down our umbrellas as the sun dips and the temperature drops below a hundred degrees.

The second male moves up to the first male,  plops down, and goes to sleep.

Twilight.    Getting too dark for photos.

Now it really is too dark.   Octavio pulls the anchor and we head for home.

So, three jaguars on our first outing.   Not bad.

***

I spotted this book while browsing the small collection of books at Barranco Alto lodge.   I had scoured the Internet before this trip for exactly this kind of guide--small and easily transportable.

It was especially useful as it included many birds, animals, insects, fish, and trees of the Pantanal.   I bought a copy from them.