Continuing on from the first day we arrive (lodge review) and an exciting day with Projeto Arara Azul, we now would rejoin our assigned English-speaking tour group.

After breakfast, we were all taken to the stable and assigned horses that are gentle and trained to take gringo tourists on rides.  It was a pleasant excursion but we all had sore butts afterwards and didn’t see all that much wildlife except for greedy vultures.
They made traditional Terere tea and passed it around cowboy style.  Then we went back to the lodge and I walked around the grounds to see the many birds just right there in the garden.  Heaps of Nandays and Quakers!

We had a buffet lunch, and then went to the lake to paddle around in Canadian canoes.  Ina loved this trip as he is quite familiar with canoeing, I as nervous the whole time the bloody thing would tip over and ruin my camera gear.

It was a pleasant enough excursion but once again, we didn’t see that much wildlife, there were a couple giant anteaters on one side of the lake.  We stayed until sunset to get some nice photos and went back to the lodge to shower and get ready for the Pantaneiro (cowboy) BBQ.

The BBQ was fun; they had a couple people playing guitar and singing and brought the meat around churrascuria style.  Ina started teaching the locals to play the spoons which was hilarious!  We stuffed ourselves silly and crashed out.

The final morning, we joined the tourists for breakfast and they went off on a bike ride.  Most people were checking out today as it was Sunday.  I was tired of group activities and just wanted to walk around looking at birds.  We went back to the mango trees, only the two BF Amazons were there.

The driver from Open Door arrived on time, we said our reluctant farewells and returned to Campo Grande full of memories of the trip of a lifetime!