Bonito, Brazil

6th October – 9th October 2017

Leaving at 5.30 has its advantages, as it means it’s still dark outside, so easy enough to fall back to sleep. This is what most of us did when we left Foz de Iguaçu. I slept the majority of the first part of the journey, until we had our first stop at about 8.30. The first stop was a fuel and toilet stop, but it wasn’t long before we were back on the road.

Back on the road, Adam had taken over driving and, as he is still learning, the driving wasn’t as smooth and we flew over some speed bumps making quite an uncomfortable ride. The ride was made even more uncomfortable by the fact that the weather was so hot! It’s a good job there isn’t a truck full of passengers on the leg, because if we couldn’t spread out like we do, it would definitely be unbearable. We had another break at about 11.30, which was then actually about 10.30 because the clocks had gone back an hour which meant we had to wait longer for lunch! It was a quick stop for toilets and refreshments if people wanted, before we carried on with 540km to go!

The only way I could comfortably sit on the truck was to sit with my arms and legs spread out across the two chairs, with my window wide open blowing the breeze onto my face, with my eyes shut – it wasn’t a pretty sight but it kind of worked. I fell asleep again but every time I woke up, I was very sweaty and it just wasn’t an enjoyable journey.

When we stopped for lunch, no one was really hungry because of the heat, so we all just snacked and ate ice lollies to try and cool off. We still had 450km to go after lunch, so we weren’t even half way at that point. It was hard going!

Most of the driving part of the day was spent sleeping as I felt like this was the best was to try and keep myself cool, I just had to keep changing position.

We had a couple more breaks but not much exciting happened. At 5.30, when we still had around 3 hours to go (13 hours after we left because of the time change), according to Lars, we had another toilet stop where he bought us beers and soft drinks to try and ease the pain of the day.

Back on the truck, for what we hoped was the final part of the journey for the day, we all gathered around the tables and played some cards to try and pass the time – although it had cooled down quite a bit, we were still quite hot. Lars came into the back at one point and told us that we only had 90km to go – it was finally in double figures – and asked us if we needed a break in 20km or if we could keep going. Most of us said keep going but William wanted to stop – mainly for a cigarette which we thought was selfish, but we all took advantage of the toilet break anyway.

With 65km left to get to Bonito, we got back on the truck at 7.20 and hoped that we would make it to the campsite before 9 when the kitchen shut.

Just after 8.30, we pulled up outside the campsite. Luckily, Lars had already automatically upgraded us all to dorms, so we didn’t have to worry about camping at all. In my dorm, there was me, Sabrina, Jessie and Courtenay; fortunately we always get private dorms, so we don’t have to share with others who aren’t on the truck. We dropped our stuff off in the rooms and went straight to the communal area.

Once everyone was ready, Lars wanted to have a team briefing, but some people got straight into the pool. I sat around the pool area but didn’t fancy getting in. Everyone had to get out just after 9 though, because the Hostel workers wanted to brief us and they wouldn’t come to the pool.

After the briefing, no one got back in the pool. Some people had ordered food, so we all sat around while people ate. We stayed up until just before 11; they turn the lights off at 11 anyway and after a 16 hour drive day, we were all pretty tired.

Despite being a little cold in the night because the air con was blowing right on me, I slept really well. I was on the bottom bunk, but luckily it was a bit bigger than the last bunk beds we stayed in at the estancia, so there were no injuries this time. We decided to meet at breakfast at 9 because me and Jack needed to do some adapter shopping so that we could charge our Argentinean laptops in Brazil and we wanted to go out before it got too hot. That plan didn’t exactly work because as soon as I stepped out of the room at 8.30, the heat hit me and I could tell it was going to be a hot day.

Breakfast was quite basic; we could choose from bread and spreads and different cakes, which weren’t very nice. As I was ready early, I decided to do some washing because I had a lot to do and I knew it would be dry in no time.

Just after 9.30, me and Jack went on our mission to find an adapter. We didn’t particularly want to walk very far but we needed the adapter in order to charge our laptops. We tried a couple of supermarkets but didn’t have any luck. Without actually talking, we asked a woman in one shop by showing her Jack’s plug and she directed us to a nearby electrical shop. In the electrical shop we couldn’t see anything either, so asked again and the man had them behind the counter, so we were lucky!

Mission accomplished, we walked back to the hostel, via the supermarket for some fresh fruit.

Back at the hostel, I got changed and jumped straight in the pool to cool off – I couldn’t believe how hot it was! Once I was cool, I got out and dried in the shade so that I could refresh the sun cream. Even in the shade it was very hot (about 30 degrees), but I had to stay there a while to let the sun cream soak in.

 

After about half an hour, I got back in the pool with some of the others and it felt so good – it was such a difference to the weather just over a week ago at the estancia. Jack had a blow up rugby ball, so we played with that for a while before I got out to lounge for a little bit.

 

When I got too hot, I just went and sat under the cover, in the shade to try and cool off a little. It was soon lunchtime, so I stayed there until after I had had some food. I wasn’t massively hungry, so I just had some cheese and crackers and the grapes that I had bought that morning – the only problem was that they were seeded, so they were a pain to eat. I put on more sun cream and waited for it to soak in, before jumping back in the water.

After lunch, me and Sabrina decided it would be a good idea to do some form of exercise, so we attempted some kind of aqua aerobics. As neither of us have ever done this before, we were completely making it up as we were going along and I’m not even sure that they were real aqua aerobic exercises but we got out of breath at one point so we thought we were doing a great job. We did a range of different exercises from star jumps, to high knees, to body twists, to sit up, to tricep dips and many more. We even tried running at one point but it was a little too slippery.

 

Once we felt like we had exercised enough, we had a relax in the pool, before getting out and lying in the sun to dry off. Even though it was still so hot, the clouds kept coming over and blocking the sun, which wasn’t great.

Just after 3, I got fed up of waiting for the sun to come back out, so I went and sat under the cover with my laptop for a bit, trying to catch up. I sat there for a couple of hours, catching up on writing and photos and although I was in the shade, it was still very hot.

There was a plan to meet up at 6 to have a drink before going out for dinner, so around 5ish, I went to shower and freshen up and get ready. The clouds had come right over at this point and were looking quite black, as though it was about to rain. It was still very warm though, so it was difficult to know what to wear.

After I was showered and dressed, I got my champagne winnings from the truck fridge and went to the communal bar area. Sabrina went to open it for me while I was sorting something out on my laptop and as soon as she undid the metal casing around the cork, the cork flew off and the champagne started flowing everywhere – it was such a waste but it all happened so quickly, there wasn’t time to catch it! We managed to clean it up with as little fuss as possible before sitting down and enjoying the drink.

Everyone all sat together and had a drink and a chat. We got a message from Sara, Joe and Char, who was now out of hospital and feeling much better, so we sent them a group selfie back. We were going to walk up to the square for dinner but as it had started raining and we thought there was a storm coming, we decided to get taxis instead, so at 6.45, they arrived to take us to the restaurant.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Juanita, we were seated in the side room because apparently there was a party of 120 people in the main room. I didn’t really know what to order because it was mainly fish on the menu and I’m not usually a massive fan of fish but in the end I decided to try it as it’s something new. Me and Sabrina had settled on the same dish but then Lars recommended we had a different type of fish that comes on a sharing platter – he said he had ordered what we originally wanted last time and then regretted it when he tried what others had because it’s apparently nicer. When Katie heard this, she decided she wanted the same thing too, so we got a three sharing platter of pacú.

When the food arrived, it was a lot more than we expected, the fish serving was huge! Sabrina served it up for us and we had rice, broccoli, potatoes and some sauces to go with it. It was the nicest fish I have ever eaten! There was so much flavour too it, I could have eaten the majority of it by myself. The only part of the whole platter I didn’t like was the gravy – and I’ve never said that before – because it was fish gravy and it just didn’t taste right.

After dinner, all of us (besides Adam) walked into the centre of town, which was about five minutes away, to have another drink. I was going to get ice cream instead of a drink but I thought I would stick with the caiprihinis for the evening instead. I only stayed for one drink in the bar before I decided it was time for bed.

It was perfect timing, because although I could have stayed out a little longer, Lars was heading back to the hostel, so me, Sabrina, Katie, Jack and Steven decided to join him – the rest stayed out longer. We walked back to the hostel, which was two kilometres away, so it took around 20 minutes. We were all tired by the time we got back so went straight to bed. Sadly the kitchen had just closed, which was annoying because our water bottles were in the fridge in there, so we had to find plastic bottles from our room and fill then up from the truck so that we had something to drink.

It didn’t take me long to get to sleep but I was woken up by Jessie and Courtenay coming back around 1. This didn’t bother me too much because I could easily roll over and go back to sleep – which I did. I then woke up around 8ish and snoozed on and off for about an hour, when my alarm went off.

When my alarm went off, I got up and ready for the day: I had to pack a bag, ready to take to the snorkelling place. I went for breakfast at around 8.30 and ate pretty much the same as the day before. After everyone had had breakfast, we met by the truck at 9.30, ready to leave.

Once we left the campsite, we had about 50km to drive to get to Cabeceira do Prata – the farm where we were going to snorkel. It took us just under an hour and a half to get there because there were lots of dirt roads and Yana isn’t a fan of bumpy roads, or any roads that aren’t tarmac and flat. It was another hot day in Bonito, so we had the windows down the whole way to get the breeze flowing.

When we arrived, the woman said that we had to split into two groups: a group of nine and a group of two because the maximum amount of people in one session is nine. Lars and Adam said that they would go in the group of two, so that the rest of us could stay together. The nine of us were starting at 11, so five minutes after we arrived.

After our briefing of the session, we were kitted out with a wetsuit, shoes and a snorkel and mask. We were asked to take our towel and clothes with us, but we could put them in a big bag that the guides would look after. We got changed and it was unbelievably hot in the wetsuit, so we only had to wear it half on at this point and we all showered to try and cool off.

Once everyone was ready, we got onto the back of a truck and were driven about 10-15 minutes to the start of trail. When we got off the truck, we had a two kilometre walk to the start of the river – in a wetsuit, in that heat, it wasn’t great, but we did it. On the walk, we were supposedly going to see some animals in the trees but because apparently the time of day that we left wasn’t a good time to see animals. It was also hard for me to hear what the guide was saying, because I was at the back of the nine of us and we were walking in single file, so if he did point something out, by the time I got to it, I either couldn’t see anything or didn’t know what I was looking at. About half way through the walk, we were refreshed with a full watering can poured over our heads.

Eventually, we made it to the beginning of the snorkelling route in the river – Olho D’água. We had to read some rules before pulling up our wetsuits and putting on our masks and snorkels.

When we got in the water, we spent a little time in the mini lake at the beginning to check that we could all swim okay and could float well enough to not need a life jacket – but they were available if people needed. We had a swim around for about 15 minutes before starting the route down the river.

Once we started on the river, we didn’t have to do much swimming, the current carried us along nicely so we just had to use our arms to steer if we wanted to. I was surprised at how many fish there were and how close we got to them – they didn’t seem bothered by us, I think I was more freaked out about how close they got to me! We had to follow the guide in single file which was difficult because you could only go as fast as the person in front of you and sometimes ended up hitting their feet if you weren’t looking in front. You weren’t allowed to touch the bottom of the river, so it was difficult to slow down or stop if you needed to.

After about 800m of floating downstream, the current sped up quite a bit and we had to get out to pass the rapids. We had a short walk over some bridges before we could rejoin the river and carry on floating down. Because the river was so clear, it was easy to see the fish and plants that were in the water – especially the fallen down trees which literally covered the whole pathway at some points, so you couldn’t help but swim into them. The problem with constantly looking in the water was that you couldn’t see the low hanging trees that were out of the water, so a couple of times, my hair got hooked onto the branches and I got caught – it was a weird feeling being hit by something out of the water, when you’re in the water.

Another 550m after rejoining the river, we came to a plunge pool where were able to try and dive down if we wanted to. At the bottom, we could see the springs coming up, and moving the sand about, which was pretty cool. I tried to dive down a few times but the life jacket wouldn’t let me at first, it kept pulling me back up to float. I found a way to try and get down eventually, but when I tried it, the pressure hurt my ears, as the water went in them, so I only tried that a couple of times before giving up.

A little bit further down the Olho D’água river, we joined with the Prata river, which is the main river. As soon as we floated into the Prata river, you could tell the difference: the water was much murkier, so we couldn’t see as much, it was colder and it was much deeper. We had about 500 more metres down the Prata river but I didn’t enjoy this bit as much because I couldn’t see as much when I was snorkelling.

 

At one point on the Prata river, if we lifted our heads out of the water, we could see some monkeys playing about in the trees above us – this was quite cool but I was scared that they might poo on me, so I moved along fairly quickly. When I put my head back under the water, I was literally surrounded by fish, which was kind of creepy, so I lifted my head again and pretended they weren’t there whilst I swam through. After a little bit more swimming, we reached the end of the trail and it was time to get out.

When we got out, I was desperate for the toilet so the guide told me to go in the bushes. I ran up to find a spot and had to wrestle with my wetsuit to get it off, which I can imagine would have been very entertaining for someone watching but luckily no one was around. The point where we got out of the water, was full of yellow butterflies, which weren’t afraid of us at all. They just kept fluttering about and the settling back down again on the floor. We had to wait there for a little while, until the truck arrived to pick us up.

Once the truck arrived, we were taken back to the main area so that we could have lunch. It was 2.30 by this time and we were all pretty hungry – we had been swimming a long time and that always makes me hungry! Lunch was buffet style and there was a selection of salads and hot food available. While we were eating lunch, we were joined by a rather rude and noisy friend, who would not leave us alone, until the cameras came out of course.

After we had eaten, we had to wait for Lars and Adam to get back from their snorkelling session – they didn’t start until 1, so we were expecting to be sat there until around 4.30 because each session is three and a half hours, approximately. While we were waiting, we didn’t do much. We sat in the shade, trying to keep cool by eating ice lollies and drinking cold drinks from the fridge.

Unfortunately for us, they didn’t arrive back until almost 5 o’clock. When they did get back, they didn’t come and get us, they just seemed to disappear, so we assumed that they had gone in the changing rooms. After a while, William went to check, and they weren’t there, so he wandered to the truck. They were by the truck and we found it really odd that they didn’t come and get us. We all got up and went over, only to find out that Yana had a flat battery – there is just no end to her problems. It now made sense why they didn’t come and get us.

After a jump start, she was good to go and we left the farm just after 5. We knew we would have a long drive back, but I wanted to stop in town on the way back if possible, so I asked Adam if he would drop me off, which was fine.

As we arrived at the dirt roads on the way back, there was an option for us to go on the roof seats. There are only eight roof seats and there are nine of us, so someone would have to miss out. I said I would stay down if everyone else wanted to go up but Jack insisted that I went up and said that he would stay down. I went on the back row with Katie, Sabrina and William and Jessie, Courtenay, Steven and Aaron went at the front. Jack stayed in the truck by himself, which looked funny from the roof.

We had got on the roof seats quite late, so we were up there while the sun was setting, which was quite cool to see. We stayed up there for quite a while, but after the sun had set, we were attacked by bugs; it was dark so we couldn’t see them but what felt like big bugs kept just flying at our faces, necks and arms. I wasn’t really keen on this, so we got back into the truck for the rest of the journey. As it had gone dark now and no one else wanted to go to town, I changed my mind on that, because I didn’t want to walk back to the campsite on my own.

When we reached the town, we had to stop anyway because Steven needed to get cash out. As soon as I saw the pretty town and the fact that shops were still open – I had my doubts because it was Sunday – I changed my mind again and decided to get out. At the last minute, Katie and Sabrina decided to get out with me, so it was nice to have a bit of company.

My main priority in town, was to try and find a patch because I was a bit gutted I couldn’t get one from the falls. We went into a couple of shops but didn’t have much luck at first. However, in one shop, there were lots of necklaces with different types of crystals on them. I really liked the look of them and they were similar to the one that Sabrina wears which I really like. Katie had her kindle on her and in a book that she is reading, found the meanings of them. The green colour that I really liked, was a Jade crystal and is meant to bring good luck and friendship – which was quite fitting. Without me telling them it was the one I wanted, I asked the girls which colour suited me best and they both said the green. I decided that I could do with some luck after the last couple of weeks and the symbol of friendship suits all the friendships I have made in South America, so I decided to treat myself. Katie also treated herself to a clear one, but I’m not sure what that one is called or what it means.

After we had bought our necklaces, we moved on into the square. As there were no more souvenir shops on the square, we decided to settle for the ice cream cafe instead. I had a scoop of Belgian chocolate and a scoop of yogurt with honey and granola, which was particularly nice. We sat outside and ate them looking over the pretty square; the square reminded me of sitting in the back garden at home, because of the amount of lights there were hanging from the trees, we just don’t have a big fish sculpture at home.

Once we had finished our ice cream, we walked back towards the hostel. We had to be back for 9 to pay our bills and it was already nearly 8. On the way back, we popped into a few more stores and by showing the shop owners another patch I had in my bag, I managed to find a Bonito one and a Brazilian flag which was perfect, my new necklace must have been working already. We stopped in a couple more shops but we were back at the hostel in time before the office closed.

After paying my bill for the snorkelling, I went back to the room to pack my bag and have a shower.

We all sat in the common area for a while but because of the very busy day and some of the hangovers from the night before, people went to bed relatively early. I went to bed around 10.30 after spending some more time trying to sort some photos out – it’s going to take a very long time until I’m fully organised again!

After a good night’s sleep, I got up and dressed around 7. I finished packing my last bits into my bag, before going for breakfast. Breakfast was pretty much the same, only there was watermelon too! It wasn’t great watermelon but it was a change.

Once I had eaten, I got my bags onto the truck, ready for back locker at 7.50 and we were all on the truck ready to leave for 8 for a couple of nights at the Pantanal – we were actually a few minutes early but that makes Lars happy.

Bonito was a beautifully pretty place. It was lovely to have a relaxing day by the pool on Saturday and I loved the snorkelling on Sunday. An extra night in Bonito would have been perfect because I don’t feel I had enough time to explore the town itself because I spent all day Saturday by the pool – but that was needed too. I guess it’s just another place I can put on my list to revisit because it’s time to move on.

To travel is to live, Katie x