It’s a quiet morning – we have until noon to do nothing. But not me! Blog time. First breakfast, and mommy gets us a good table by the window:
and as the weather is the clearest of all of our days here, there’s an incredible view from the Sky Restaurant:
Packing, uploading and a bit of reading in the amazing lobby. There are 3 or 4 different areas to sit in. In this view, you will see mom engrossed in her book and be sure to check out the bar on the back wall):
and the cool library area:
Before we know it, our ride is here and we’re off to the (local) airport. Plenty of time to scope our the snacks and have a bite before going on. When we check in, I show the agent our boarding passes on my iPad. Luggage gone, boarding passes issued, we head to the HSBC lounge to have a bite and charge our gear. Deb’s in a panic: where’s the iPad. Takes a minute for the absent-minded Sherlock to figure it out and go racing back to the counter. Yes, you can breathe a sign of relief, it’s there waiting.
Board the plane and have an uneventful flight with the Ava football club and land 2 1/2 hours later. A hot humid day! Our agent meets us, and leaves us with our driver, who speaks no English. We head to pick up a few snacks for the 2 1/2 hour drive, and I am horrified to discover I do not have my wallet! Mom, of course, is in stitches laughing that I am worse than she is in this particular area. However, I told her not to laugh so hard, as she can’t find her small purse with credit card and plenty of cash as well. What a pair! We call Gilda, the agent who met us, and she said she’d call the airline and swing by the airport after work. We drive and drive and the town gives way to verdant plains and lots and lots of skinny brahmin cows.
As it gets darker, we enter the Pantanal park, and keep our eyes peeled for wildlife. As we approach the Araras lodge, we see a catapirra, which looks like a pig-sized hamster to me. We also see a couple of caiman, which look like small alligators (but nonetheless have me thinking of Captain Hook).
We arrive at the lodge, and the woman who meets us speaks no English, but does speak French, so I dust it off and we check-in and head to our rooms. Mom unpacks in a hurry – she wants to find the missing wallet! and so she does. The bell rings for dinner, and we join a man who turns out to be our guide, and a Chinese man currently from Australia, as well as a family of 3 from France. The phone rings, and it’s Gillda, who says they have my wallet (yes, Evan, it’s so true!) and will hold it for my return visit.
Dinner is lovely – all cooked and served in cast iron lidded pots. Salad! Greens! Avocado! So happy….and even jello for dessert. What more could we want?
After dinner is an open jeep night safari ride – so fun! The guides point our crab-eating raccoons (a mother and 3 babies!), crab eating foxes, rabbits, baby dear, and about 2 million caiman. They’re like the wildebeest of the Kenyan plains or the squirrels of the American yards. It’s fun when the guides shine the powerful light on one side of the road, into a pond, and you can see so many sets of red eyes glaring back at you. The night is lovely and we manage to get in a few hysterical giggles before it’s all over.
Back in our room, there is no electricity. Oh, Matooooo, I broke the cardinal rule and traveled without my headlamp! I forgot about that one when reading the equipment list. But luckily, we have our handy iPhone app, and in no time we’re settled and headed to sleep (a 6 am wake-up call, which Rip Van Winkle is not too happy about!).