Campo Grande and Bonito, Brazil

Campo Grande and Bonito, Brazil - slideshow

I flew into Campo Grande July 7th, Tuesday, and Mariana, a charming CS member was my hostess there for three days. Campo Grande has 800,000 people and it is the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul. The broad asphalted streets, big park in the middle of the city, and relatively small downtown, created an expansive and at the same time cozy feeling for me. Mariana immediately introduced me to terere, a mate tea that is shared from the same bowl and sipped with a metal straw by several people, usually friends, chimarrao style, except that it is ice cold. I got so addicted to it that I bought my own bowl and some tea for the road.

On Friday morning Mariana drove me to the bus station, where I embarked to Bonito, at the edge of Pantanal Matogrossense. There are several farms around here offering activities such as snorkeling down Rio da Prata, which I did yesterday. The water is warm because there are several hot springs coming out from the riverbed, but the fish seem to like it. We visited with them as we floated down the river for an afternoon, enjoying the warm crystalline water and the fish swimming with us. The Gruta do Lago Azul – Blue Lake Cave I visited today – a 450 million year old rock formation with a blue lake at the end. The Pantanal, was covered by salty water 450 million years ago, and today it offers us an incredible site of rock formations, savanna, rivers and flooded plains . The maritacas, small parrots are all over the place and never shut up. I can hear them right now as I type. Now I understand the Portuguese saying; when someone doesn't stop talking, we call them maritaca.

This is also cattle land and needless to say, the meat and fish is out of this world. Tomorrow I will go to the Pantanal “proper.” It is about five hours from Bonito. I will stay in a farm for three days horseback riding, fishing piranhas, boat riding and doing day and night safaris. I will give you the report later.