Northern Transpantaneira Tour - 4 Days & 3 Nights

This trip is an excellent choice for those who want to visit the Pantanal but have limited time on their schedule.  After traveling one hundred and five kilometers from the Cuiabá airport on a well paved highway, you will enter the Transpantaneira Road where you will will imediately begin to experience the largest concentration of wildlife anywhere in Latin America.

The focus of this tour is to have an intense, yet comfortable ecological experience in the short course of four days in some of the best areas in the Northern Pantanal for viewing wildlife, including areas that host some of the rarest and most difficult-to-see species such as the Jaguar and the Hyacinth Macaw.

While other guests might be at the lodge, your guide and tour is arranged specifically for your group.  The accommodations are rustic, yet comfortable and home-like.  The first lodge features solar heated water, and has rooms with ceiling fans and electricity by a generator. The principle reason for selecting this small family-run lodge is its remote location in an area bounding with wildlife and it´s professional close-knit staff.  The second lodge on this trip is chosen from several alternatives based on the season and your preferences.

First day- Cuiabá – Poconé – Transpantaneira:

Typically you will arrive in the morning at the Marechal Rondon International Airport, in Varzea Grande, Mato Grosso, some 10 km from the center of Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso, where you will meet your guide.  After a drive of 105 km on a well-paved highway, you will stop for lunch in the historic city of Poconé, while the Safari Car is outfitted for the journey down the Transpantaniera Road.  After just a few kilometers you will soon see why the Pantanal is considered the place with the greatest concentration of wildlife in Latin America.   In your open-air, canopy-covered 4 wheel drive safari truck traveling along the elevated highway you will have the perfect viewpoint to observe the wildlife and photograph nature.

Not only will the concentration of the wildlife impress you; but the size of the birds as well.  You will quickly loose count of the number of herons and egrets you see,  if not the number of species in this family, from the common Snowy Egret and Great Egret to the less common Boat-billed Heron.  With the help of your guide, you will soon be distinguishing the immature Black-crowned Night Heron from the Striated Heron, and the Rufescent Tiger-heron from the larger Whistling Heron.  The Jabiru Stork is the largest of the three storks you are likely to see this afternoon.   You may be able to observe three or four of the six Ibis species that inhabit or migrate through the Pantanal as well as the Limpkin, the Roseate Spoonbill the Purple Gallinule, Stilts and the Wattled Jacana.  Add to this a splash of parakeets and parrots, a few of the five different kingfisher species as well as a dozen or so raptors to complement your bird list for the day.  Without doubt you will encounter the spectacled caiman, capybaras and perhaps some of the three deer species that can be observed along the Transpantaneira Highway.  At dusk approaches you will arrive at the Private ecological reserve and be greeted and assisted to your rooms by the courteous staff of the lodge.  Once you have had a chance to make yourself comfortable in your chalet and enjoy a shower that utilizes passive solar hot water, you can make your way back to the lodge house for dinner and a drink, and meet any of the other distinguished travelers that might be present in the intimate environment of the small guesthouse.  The aroma of the regional cuisine draws not only the guests towards the kitchen, but the natives as well.  Be on the lookout for the stealthy lobinho, or Crab-eating Foxes, who more than likely will be making their rounds under the cover of darkness.  After a buffet-style meal you will depart for nocturnal spotlighting safari.  You will look for nocturnally active mammals such as the Ocelot, Jaguar, Margay, Tapir, Rabbit, Raccoon and Giant Anteater, along with avifauna such as the Great Potto, Nightjar and Pauraque.

Second Day: Porto Jofre

You will no doubt be awakened by some boisterous large blue creatures who fly more often than you do and yet have no idea what it means to have jet lag.  This is your wakeup call to enjoy the beautiful sunrise and observe and photograph birds during their most active period accompanied by your guide.  After this you will enjoy a hardy Pantaneiro breakfast.  The Northern Pantanal has what are called “Island Forests”, areas of slightly elevated land that formed closed forests surrounded by areas of open fields.  After breakfast you will have the opportunity to explore a trail near the lodge and get to observe nature from a closer, subtler perspective.  The early morning hours are the best time to locate Howler Monkeys whose haunting calls are proportioned to mark their  morning feeding ritual.  By the time you are ready to turn back for lunch, hopefully you will have  added a Red-billed Scythebill, a Buff-throated or Narrow-billed Woodcreeper to your list or maybe a Squirrel Cuckoo.   You may have to distinguish between the Lineated and the Crimson-crested woodpecker as they are both commonly observed in this area.  After returning to the lodge for lunch, your journey continues to the end of the Transpantaneira Highway by Safari Car.  You will pass through Campo Jofre, one of the largest examples of campo limpo, which literally means “clean field” and is used to distinguish the fields of grasslands devoid of woody growth that contrast the “Island Forests” that typify the Northern Pantanal.  Here is where you will have your best chance to spot an Andaconda , a rare find, or see a jaguar dart in and out of the tall grasses.  A surer find will be the sonorous Southern Screamer.  You will be impressed, no doubt, by the quantity and size of Capybaras and Spectacled Caimans that line the highway, now the only dry place, as you descend deeper into the marshes.   Soon you will begin to observe an immense tree line looming in the distance and you will know that you are approaching the gallery forest that lines the Cuiabá River.   On arrival at Porto Jofre, you will transfer to a private motorboat and continue exploring the wetlands beyond the reach of any roads.  Spectacled Caimans and Capabaras are abundant.  Tapirs and Jaguars are spotted with less frequency.   You will return to the lodge after witnessing the setting of the sun over the Cuiabá River.

After another hearty pantaneiro buffet-style dinner, you will have the chance to repeat the spotlighting expedition looking for felines, Crab-eating Foxes and nocturnal avifauna before retiring in the lodge.

Day 3: Open Field Areas and observation Tower

Early morning breakfast at the lodge.

Departure back along the Transpantaneira Highway stopping to take photographs and observe wildlife along the way.   As you return to the higher fields you should be looking out for more terrestrial mammals such as Giant Anteaters, Greater Rheas and Pampas Deer and smaller birds such as the Troupial and Scarlet-headed Blackbird.

You will arrive at different  lodge in time for lunch.

After lunch you can hike to  an observation tower.  Here you will have a birdseye view of the Pantanal than demonstrates the island forests and open fields typical of this region of the Pantanal.  Depending on which observation tower is chosen, you may be able to observe Howler Monkeys, or Crested Oropendolas and Yellow Rumped Caquiques.

After the hike back to the lodge you will be ready for another hearty dinner.

A Nighttime spotlighting Safari is one of the possibility this night, or you may prefer to spend the evening in the company of other guests at the lodge on your final night in the Pantanal.

Overnight at the lodge.

Day 4:

Breakfast at the lodge.

Departure for Cuiabá arriving in the city of Poconé in time for lunch or transfer directly to Cuiabá depending on your onward arrangements.