Jaguar Camp is owned by Ailton Lara.  The 34-year-0ld built this camp over the past two years.  It’s rustic and comfortable.  According to Lonely Planet, he is one of the best local jaguar guides in the Pantanal.  He’s a typical business owner.  He’ll be in the kitchen, clearing tables, serving drinks, entertining customers after dinner playing guitar and singing American songs and keeping tabs on our purchases.  A very likeable guy!

The four-room lodge. Very basic but clean.  Air-conditioning which is wonderful after a day on the boat sweating.

The dining hall where you get a good assortment of food with the exception of white rice and beans.  That’s something you get with just about every meal in Brazil.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner.  In the winter, this becomes a mud pit.  Water extends up the shore 6-8 feet.  You can see water marks on the trees along the shore.

Anyway, our driver picks the four of us up and the three sisters, me and our guide, Tito, head north to Posada Rio Clara.  Along the way we stop to photograph caiman…

A great horned owl…

and a little further up the road.  These beautiful blue hyacinth macaws.

There’s five of them in this next image.

and my favorite shot.

We arrive at Rio Clara in time for lunch.  This is a much larger place than Jaguar Camp.  Lots of tourists from Germany, the United States and a mixture from other parts of the world.  There’s hardly anyone here from Brazil.  Right now, there is a nationally known nature and wildlife photographer, John Shaw, here with eight clients.  There’s a pool and every room has a hammock outside the door.

Late in the afternoon, when the temperature has dropped to 99 or so we go for a 2-3 mile walk.  We see a fox…

A pigmy owl…

and some of the local livestock which looks like they could use feeding.

There are also fields full of these…hundreds of them.

Termite mounds….You think you’ve got problems.

This morning…Wednesday…Tito, Shawn (one of the sisters) and I went for a morning walk in the forest.  The most interesting find was the Marmoset monkeys.  There were a couple of trees with them swarming everywhere.   Including one Mom who was carrying two babies on her back.

It looked to us like Dad had joined the party.  He then headed off.

Here’s two images that come straight from the camera with no editing.  It’s a jumping monkey that I was just barely able to capture jumping and just before it lands on a neighboring tree.

A little further up the trail we spotted a chicken snake.  It was about 6-7 feet long.  Won’t hurt humans but chickens are too fond of them.

Tito, the guide and one of the three sisters, Shawn.  Nice lady.  She’s a PhD nursing professor in Seattle.  We celebrated her 63rd birthday at Jaguar Camp.

That brings us up to date.  Just had lunch and this afternoon we are headed out for a boat ride at 3pm…after it cools down.  If you haven’t tried this, you should be able to click on any image in the blog and see a much larger version of it.

Last night we had a night safari ride looking for anteaters.  We weren’t successfull.  It was interesting.  Kind of like coon hunting in Kansas.  Ride in a truck and shine a light looking for eye shine reflections.

Tomorrow is my last day with this part of the trip.  We’re doing another boat ride in the morning.  I’ll have lunch and leave here about 12:30 to catch my 5pm flight in Cuiaba for Foz do Iguacu, Brazil.

I appreciate all the nice comments that you’ve sent.  So far, it’s been another great experience.

Ron