Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. ~Mary Ritter Beard
A vacation that was supposed to last four days turned into a
two week stay in the Pantanal and turned into the adventure of a lifetime. So this blog post will be all about staying
at Tres Gigantes Research Station as well as the many wonderful adventures I
went on during my extended vacation in this stunning isolated wilderness. Enjoy!
If you have not read my last blog post about the journey to the Pantanal
I encourage you to do so here first: http://kaitlynwintersbradleyparaguay.blogspot.com/2014/12/journeying-to-pantanal.html.
Tres Gigantes Research Station is set up to hold around 12
guests at one time, but when we were there it was only the two of us. The power for the station comes from solar
panels, so when it is cloudy and rainy that means no power, but I will get to
more of that later. The drinking water
comes from rain water that is put through a cloth filter and the water for
bathing/dishes is pumped out of the river into a big storage tank for use. The station itself was a beautiful lodge in
the middle of the wilderness but with modern amenities including a fully
functioning kitchen and beautiful woodwork.
This picture is the room that we stayed in with wonderful bunk
beds. Also the entire lodge had screened
porches and windows because the mosquitos are absolutely horrendous, which I guess
you could expect staying in the largest wetland on earth!
The station itself has a canoe that can be used during the
stay so many mornings when we got up early or in the early evenings before all
the mosquitos emerged we went out and paddled around the river. This is just a picture of me in the back of
the canoe one afternoon with a cane pole trying to catch some of the wonderful piranha
found in the river.
There
are three trails that leave from the biological station, 2 of which follow
along the river and one that goes further inland into the dry chaco
forest. This is just a picture I took on
one of the walks from ground level looking up at the forest strata which is
very typical of this area. Also we were
lucky because only a couple of weeks ago most of the trails were underwater and
they had to use a canoe to navigate the trails.
While we were there with all the rain parts of the trails flooded but we
were able to walk most of the few miles of trails they had.
This is just a picture of me one afternoon sitting along the
river at a little picnic table getting caught up on some journaling and taking
a cool rest in the shade before drinking terere.
Some cool fungus that I found walking along a trail one day
and I was just amazed at the beautiful colors!
For whatever reason the first couple days we were
unsuccessful in fishing. Part of the
reason is that the since this is a big wetland the river doesn’t always flow
the right way which affects the fish movement.
At first I didn’t believe what they were saying until I saw it for
myself and thought some more about it.
When it rains up here the river we were on was a small river compared to
the large Rio Paraguay so when it rains a lot the Rio Negro (which runs in
front of the station) gets backed up and flows “upstream”. It was so crazy to see a couple of time when
we were up there the river for a while would flow downstream and then other times
it would be flow the opposite direction.
Anyways, so we were unsuccessful fishing the first couple of days, which
was alright since we still had plenty of food, but one of the park guards felt
bad for us since he saw how much time we were fishing and were being
unsuccessful so he pulled out of the freezer this large fish of us to grill up
for dinner one night.
This picture can help explain why we were stuck up there for
two weeks. Every afternoon it seemed to
rain, and not just a little bit of rain but torrential downpours that had us
stuck in the station many afternoons.
Luckily they had plenty of covered porches for me to get caught up on
some reading. Also the storms up here
were phenomenal and since the ground was so flat and not a lot of large trees
you could see the storms coming from a ways away and just fantastic lightning
shows! Since the only way in and out of
here is by plane or bus with all of the rain the clay roads were impassible and
the grass runway was underwater, we were stuck.
Just a picture of one of the storms that we watched moving
into the area!
My first piranha fish that I caught using a simple cane
pole! I was super excited since we had
been trying for so long to catch fish and then from then on out we caught
hundreds, which was good considering I had only brought food for 4 days and not
two weeks.
The first fish soup, of many that we made with just the few
veggies we had left, onions and tomatoes with oregano and the yummy piranhas.
Just one of the many priceless sunsets that we saw up in the
Pantanal!
This is just a picture taken from one of the lookout points
along one of the trails leading by the river.
One of the trails had a platform that was about 10 feet in
the air where you could see a beautiful panoramic shot of the river and looking
over to Bolivia so this is just a picture of me climbing down from the
platform.
Another afternoon of fishing with lots of wonderful piranhas
for late lunch and dinner!
One of the large birds that was constantly hanging around
the research station and loved when we cleaned the fish since it was an easy
and free meal for them!
This picture doesn’t really do it justice but here in the Pantanal
in any given day we would just see thousands of birds. I tried to take a picture to show just the
sheer number of birds that you could see at any given time. I was just blown away by the avian diversity
here, many of which are migratory birds that have traveled here from all over
the world as well as resident species that had just such beautiful plumage and
unique habits. In an upcoming blog post
I will have more information about the animals and birds we saw while visiting
the Pantanal.
Just a typical scene from the river looking over to Bolivia,
such a lush and green oasis!
Some more fish soup showing the fish in the pot as well as
other fish that later became fish soup or fried fish!
Most evenings when it was super warm outside we swam in the
river. At first we were scared due to
the fact that we had seen the piranhas that swim in the water and the size of
their teeth, as well as both seeing and hearing the caymens in the water along
the other shore, as well as the elusive anaconda snakes we had seen pictures of. We had talked to the park guards and they
said no one had ever had any problems and that most people that visit go
swimming at least once so we decided to jump right in. So this is just a picture of me swimming
around in the river staying close to shore and the dock, but just a refreshing
break in such an amazing landscape. How
many people can say they have swam in the water with such a bizarre arrange of
animals?
A picture of me with one of the large wax palm tree leaves.
Another breathtaking sunset over the river from the dock.
As we began to run out of basic food and get tired of making
fish soup all the time we decided to try some fried fish which also turned out
to be fantastic!
Another afternoon canoeing on the river with a small storm
coming in.
On the afternoon canoeing trip we saw this one lone wax palm
tree in Bolivia so I thought it made a fun picture!
The only other type of fish we caught besides piranha that
we then used at bait fish to catch the bigger piranhas.
One afternoon, as was normal, just a picture of another
storm front coming in.
Most evenings, when it began to cool down, but before the
mosquitos all came out, we sat on the dock and fished and I just enjoyed the
cool water by putting my feet in the water.
Just a picture perfect day looking out onto the river and
over to Bolivia.
One afternoon we saw a beautiful rainbow following the
rainstorm, it is a little hard to see, but it is there if you look close!
This is a picture taken from the platform along the river
looking out across the river to Bolivia.
My Thanksgiving dinner consisting of fried piranhas, I kept
trying to imagine a full out Thanksgiving feast but it didn’t work so
well. At least we were lucky enough to
catch fish that day though!
Another breathtaking view in the Pantanal, the clouds always
just looked so perfect, like we were in a movie or something.
One afternoon the park guards traveled up river to another
large ranch and brought back with them this huge fish that we made into a wonderful
Sunday lunch with them.
Me just showing off the large and wonderful kitchen, which
always just felt empty since it was just the two of us. I loved the huge dining room table though
which was just solid wood and so beautiful!
More pictures of some of the fish that we caught and baked
up for dinner. Although the fish were
great to eat, towards the end of the trip I was hoping that I wouldn’t ever
have to see a fish for a VERY long time, but we were blessed enough to have
enough fish each day for food, so I guess I can’t complain too much!
One morning we got up early and walked down one of the
trails which had a platform that was about 10 feet in the air where you could
see a beautiful panoramic shot of the river and looking over to Bolivia. So these couple of photos are just of the
beautiful sunrise and thousands of birds that we saw!
Another one of the piranha that I caught. At first it was hard to learn how to use just
a cane pole with line but once I got used to using the pole it was really much
more fun than fishing like I normally do! Below is just another picture fishing off the dock one evening with a very large piranha on the other end!
The beautiful sunrise the day we were finally able to leave,
after being there for two weeks. It was
a bittersweet goodbye because it was just such an amazing and wild place but at
the same time I was ready to be able to get out and back to site. The clouds here were always just so different but so beautiful and vivid!
In Bahia Negra the small little Naval fleet of ships.
Since we had left so early from the research station we went
further down river to the same community we visited our first day, Puerto Diana,
and indigenous community. We visited
with one of the teachers we had met and had our last bit of fish before we
left. They also had beautiful woven
baskets they make from dried grasses so I was able to stock up on some
beautiful baskets and assorted other items for next to nothing in price which
was super fun!
We then got dropped off in Bahia Negra and so we went to the
airfield to wait for the plane. We ended
up waiting about 3 hours since the plane was running a little bit late but as
we waited we just got eaten alive by mosquitos, it didn’t matter how much bug
spray you had on, it was never enough!
Just a picture of me so happy to finally see the plane after
waiting for so long. We finally made it
out though and had just such great memories and stories of the Pantanal.
On our way back to Asuncion we stopped at a few smaller
towns and one of the stops our plane had some maintenance so we all got off and
we decided to look around the base a little bit and take some pictures of some
of their other planes and helicopters.
Well I hope that you enjoyed this blog post about my two
weeks “stuck” on vacation but in a beautiful place. My next blog post will be about some of the
amazing plants and animals that we experienced during our stay. Until next time…
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