Monday 22 October 2012

No boat, no plane, no motorcar...

We woke up at 5:30 again for our second day of activities -- though the this time, we'd be traveling on foot. We put on our hiking shoes and followed Stefan through the gates.

There are two benefits to walking in terms of animal spotting: 1) you are able to sneak up on animals slightly better (though in the Pantanal, where the animals are still skittish to the big, clumsy human creatures, this is still pretty near impossible), and 2) you are able to scale down your focus and pay attention to the insects and plants. Stefan mentioned that he and Sam have joked about having a "two meter bush walk," where you focus solely on the flora and fauna that are present within a two meter span -- I think it's a valid idea!

For example, here's an antlion, which we pulled out of its sand pit trap using a twig:

Here's a series of leafcutter ants going about their business:

But insects can only keep Ian's interest for oh-so-long. We soon moved on to birds. Some cormorants drying their wings in the tree breezes:

A trio of red and green macaws in flight (yes, that is their official name -- not to be confused with the blue and yellows):

While it's true that we mostly saw birds and insects on the bush walk, we were in prime jaguar and puma territory. Stefan often leaves the lodge's camera traps on these paths to catch them on their night prowls.

As we continued on the walk, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by increasingly loud rumbly growls -- take a listen:

You might think the source of such noises must be quite close -- but you'd be incorrect. These are the sounds of the black howler monkeys, considered by most to the the loudest land animal in the world. They can be heard clearly for up to 20 miles! (according to wikipedia). We think we were listening to a monkey across the forest -- check out the black blob near the top of the center tree:

As we started our return to the lodge, we ran straight into a group of peccaries. They did not enjoy being disturbed and found us threatening -- clicking their jaws at us in warning.

I admit that I was getting a little tired by this point -- upon being told that we still had roughly 20 minutes to go -- and feeling more drained by the moment due to the intense sun...I wussed out and asked Stefan to call Sam to pick us up on the safari jeep. Good thing though -- because otherwise, we would have never spotted an entire family of howler monkeys above the road on the way back! First we spotted the male, peeking out from the trees:

But he soon moved away.

Luckily for us, his movement caused his entire family to follow.

Since they moved to another tree along the path, we got to watch the entire migration:

There was even a baby howler monkey amongst the family -- the picture doesn't quite do it justice:

Here's a few final shots of the patriarch before they moved on beyond our sights:

And as a final sighting for the morning, there were a few Hyacinth macaws in the trees by the lodge:

After a well-needed nap, another steller lunch (the food at the lodge is ridiculously tasty), and another nap (we slept a lot during the day), we headed out for some horseback riding in search of giant anteaters.

The horses were at the farm -- because Embiara was in fact, a working ranch, with hundreds of bulls, dozens of pigs, chickens, and so on.

This was the first time I'd ridden a horse -- suffice it to say that my mount was NOT graceful. Alas, there were no pictures of this!

I think I looked okay once I steadied myself on the horse.

Our horses were pretty tame -- they generally just followed the horse in front on them:


Unfortunately, we did not see the giant anteater on the trip (there was one that regularly paced the grounds of the farm), all we saw were birds - luckily, they were pretty birds:

It was a nice ride -- I could see how a person would get really into horses....though may not the riding helmets - those were pretty hideous.

A final shot of the horses in the light of sunset -- que bonito!

And with the sunset, so ended another day.



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