Hello World

So, I´m back in the real world. I just arrived in Corumba, just close to the Bolivian border. The 4 days in the Pantanal was absolutely amazing. I would highly recommend it.

After writing the last post, I ran out the door and got my bags and got on a bus for 4 hours and headed west towards the Pantanal, which are wetlands in the west of Brazil. From there, we spent about 4 hours on the back of a truck going over fairly bumpy roads to our camp. That night, we just had dinner, had a few drinks and settled into our hammocks.

The hammocks were actually surprisingly comfortable and I had a good nights sleep everynight, unlike some of the others in my group. Thankfully my group was amazing. Everyone was really nice and we all got on great together. There were other groups that seemed crap, so I´m delighted that I got such a great group.

There was Umre from South America, John from Holland, Oren from Israel, Lucas from the Czech Republic and Hugo and Fanny, a really nice couple from France. We all slept in the same tent (pictures to follow) and it was so much fun. It was great having such a wonderful mix of people, with the token Paddy thrown in for good measure. Our guide, Mario was excellent and could spot a fly moving from 2Km away. He saw animals ages before any of us actually realised they were there. God Bless his eyesight.

Anyway, we just spent Sunday travelling there and on Monday we went on 2 treks, on before "lunch" and the other after. I use the term lunch loosely, because it was at 11am. For any of those that know me, that is EARLY! We got up at 6am every morning, and were on our merry way at 7am. We spent 3 hours out, then came back for lunch and a sleep, before we headed out again at about 3pm for another 3 hours to do the afternoon activity.

We didnt go out around midday because it was just too hot. It has been about 35C everyday. Monday was just 2 treks where we saw loads of animals, which was cool. In the afternoon we went swimming with crocodiles, which got a little hairy. When I post the photo you´ll see.

Tuesday we went pirhana fishing in the morning and horse riding in the afternoon. Yesterday was so much fun. Thankfully, we didnt get eaten by the pirhanas, even though they were biting away at red meat at the end of our rods less than 2 metres away! I caught 2 pirhanas, but Oren didnt! Everyone else did, except poor Oren.

The horse riding in the afternoon was amazing. I had only ever sat on a horse before, so it was totally new to me. But the horses were every good, so I didnt have to do very much. My ass did hurt quite a bit, and even now, its a little sore. But totally worth it.

This morning, for our last activity we went back pirhana fishing because we all loved it so much. I caught 3 today, so I am well pleased. Thankfully, Oren, who spent 3 hours fishing yesterday, caught his first fish.

(On a totally different topic, there is a really annoying Israeli couple blasting out some stupid videos on the computer next to me! Man, this is annoying)

So, after leaving the camp today at 11.30am, and arriving at the bus stop on the main road 3 hours later (1 hour less than on the way there), I caught a bus to Corumba with Oren. It only cost 16.20Reais, or about 5Euros.

I just got here a few hours ago, showered, ate and did my laundry. Nothing exciting really. There´s not very much to this city, so I reckon I´m out of here tomorrow. Billy is arriving at 12.45pm tomorrow, so I´ll go meet him there. Hopefully he wont mind us going straight to Bolivia because there really isnt much to see here.

I had heard the train to Santa Cruz, Bolivia is crap and long, which one train is, but here are more expensive ones that only take 12 hours and cost US$27 or about 20Euros. It is meant to be very nice with DVD players and air conditioning. Beat that Iarnroid Eireann! 55Euros for 2.5 hours on the train from Cork to Dublin.

I´ve just uploaded a few photos to my gallery, one from each place I´ve been to so far to give you an idea. I´ve also added 2 new pages, one with a list of all the places I´ve stayed at here and what I´ve done everyday here.

Well its 11.25pm here and I should go to sleep.