Category Archives: Destinations

A Quick Trip To Chapada Dos Guimaraes

Posted on by

A very easy and scenic drive from Cuiaba (once you find you way out of the town) is Chapada dos Guimaraes National Park.

0Z1

Chapada 0Z3

Since we had driven all the way from the Pantanal, we arrived fairly late in the day so just made a quick drive through town and went looking for some place to stay.  This is the town square where Hahns Macaws roost in the evening.0Z4 0Z5 0Z8 0Z9

After driving around, we stumbled on this small traditional style pousada with a bird in its logo.  It means “Bird’s Corner” which was a good sign and it was ridiculously cheap, around $10 USD-ish!Z0 Z1 Z2 Z3

After checking in, we hurried back to the main square to wait for the Hahns Macaws.  They did not disappoint!

C01 C03 C05 C10 C11 C15

A pair of Chestnut-eared Aracaris were also hanging around.C12 C13

I can’t seem to find this one in the book, any help appreciated!C16

We had dinner at one of the little restaurants in the main square, then got to bed early so we could make an early start to the park.

Birding The Grounds Of Curicaca Lodge

Posted on by

I had absolutely no information about this hidden gem before we showed up, but Curicaca Lodge delivered some fantastic and easy birding.  Before the sun actually rose, we could hear the resident Hyacinth Macaws calling while some monkeys and Blue-fronted Amazons looked on.

ZC-11 ZC-10 ZC-12 ZC-13 ZC-14 ZC-15 ZC-16 ZC-17

As the sun rose, the light got better so better pics!ZC-18 ZC-19 ZC-20 ZC-21 ZC-22 ZC-23 ZC-24 ZC-25 ZC-26 ZC-27 ZC-28 ZC-29 ZC-30 ZC-31 ZC-32 ZC-33 ZC-34 ZC-35 ZC-36 ZC-37 ZC-38 ZC-39 ZC-40 ZC-41 ZC-42 ZC-43 ZC-44 ZC-45 ZC-46 ZC-47 ZC-48 ZC-49 ZC-50 ZC-51 ZC-52 ZC-53 ZC-54 ZC-55 ZC-56 ZC-57 ZC-58 ZC-59 ZC-61 ZC-62 ZC-63 ZC-65

 

Some gorgeous little hummingbirds, not sure of exact species.ZC-66 ZC-67 ZC-68 ZC-69 ZC-70 ZC-71 ZC-72

Blue-headed ParrotZC-73 ZC-74 ZC-75 ZC-76 ZC-77

WoodpeckerZC-78 ZC-79 ZC-80 ZC-81 ZC-82 ZC-83

As you can see there are plenty of birds to keep you busy at Curicaca!

Driving The Trans-Pantaneira – Independent Birding

Posted on by

If you want to self-drive the Trans-Pantaniera in a rental car, the first step is to get from Cuiaba to Pocone.  Pocone is a small town where you can grab something to eat and then head to the Trans-Pantaniera which is a well-maintained dirt road through some prime birding territory.

ZZ-4 ZZ-3 ZZ-2 ZZ-1

Transpantaneira in blue, it’s not that long when compared to the entire Pantanal region but the birds are amazing!

Pantanal2

Well-maintained dirt road.P-01 P-02

This map from the German language Pantanal Portal shows the exact position of the various eco-lodges along the Transpantaniera.  For our trip, we stayed at Curicara Eco-Lodge and made a day visit to Araras Eco-Lodge.  On the last day, we called into Pousada Piuval for a mid-morning snack and to see some more birds in their lush grounds.T-P Lodges P-03

For descriptions of the various lodges, this website has a good list in English, also check the latest reviews on Trip Advisor, paying most attention to people with several reviews who seem unbiased.

Here’s a few pics from our drive from the entrance to Araras Eco-Lodge where we made a day visit.

P-04 P-05 P-06 P-07 P-08 P-09 P-10

Quaker Parrots (Monk Parakeets) were everywhere – check out those humongous communal nests!

P-11 P-12 P-13 P-14 P-15 P-16 P-17 P-18 P-19 P-20 P-21

Divided road.P-22 P-23 P-24

Cuiaba – Gateway To The Northern Pantanal, Brazil

Posted on by

The Pantanal of Brazil is so vast that you could spend weeks exploring it if you had the time and money!  After a look at the southern part, accessed from Campo Grande, now it’s time to look at the northern part, accessed from Cuiaba.

Pantanal

Most people will get to Cuiaba on a domestic flight.  Azul, Gol, Tam & Avianca Brasil all fly here and the most common flights originate in Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Campo Grande though there are routes all over Brazil, including to Alta Floresta (for Cristalino) on Azul.

When we were there, IHG just happened to have the Cuiaba Holiday Inn on Pointbreaks so I jumped on the free room for a mere 5000 points.  It’s a nice enough hotel and the staff were lovely, but the location is the complete opposite direction of the road to Pocone starting from the airport.  I did come prepared with printed Google maps back in Sept 2012 but what I didn’t realize was that the city was full of detours and road works in anticipation of the Soccer World Cup and my map was pretty much useless and we got lost several times just trying to get out of the city!  Wasted time that would have been better spent in the Panatanal!  In desperation, I finally offered a taxi driver 20 BRL ($5-ish) to drive ahead of us and show us the beginning of the road to Pocone.

HI Cuiaba - Pocone

Airport circled in red.HI Cuiaba - Pocone2

Cuiaba is a great place for DIY exploring of the Pantanal as rental cars are reasonable and once you get on the right road it’s easy driving via Pocone to the Trans-Pantaniera – where you start to see the amazing birdlife!  We rented a small car from Hertz and it managed ok as the dirt road in the Trans-Pantaneira is well maintained and we had no dramas returning the car.  I wasn’t thrilled at having to drive a manual (stick shift) but it’s flat country and pretty straight-forward roads once you get out of the city.

If you arrive on a late night flight, I recommend heading left down Route 364 towards the Pocone turn-off and pulling into one of the small motels to pass the night.  Some of them may be geared towards “short term” stays but these people won’t bother you and these kind of motels have discreet car parks that are fenced in and guarded.  I would then get up as early as possible to hit the Trans-Pantaneira by dawn, spend the morning birding and then go to your choice of lodging.  More about this to come!

 

A Day With Caiman Ecological Resort, Pantanal

Posted on by

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!

100_5597 100_5479 100_5481 100_5498 100_5516 100_5604 100_5630 IMGA0084 IMGA0086 IMGA0097 IMGA0099 IMGA0102 IMGA0106

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.

100_5612

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.

100_5618

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.

100_5626

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.

IMGA0109 IMGA0114 IMGA0119 IMGA0129

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!

Planning A Birding Trip To The Pantanal

Posted on by

There are several ways you can organize your visit to the Pantanal.  There are also two major gateway cities – Campo Grande in the south and Cuiaba in the north.  It doesn’t really matter which gateway you choose as the wildlife is similar on either end and the Hyacinth Macaws are found in both areas.  It will probably come down to which is more convenient to the rest of your trip.  If you are including Cristalino near Alta Floresta then go with Cuiaba.  If you are including Foz do Iguacu, then choose Campo Grande.  You have a choice of flights (Gol, Azul, Tam or Avianca) or bus transportation either way.  When we did our trip, Gol was a partner of American Airlines, now they partner with Delta.  Tam is the current partner of American.  Azul and Avianca Brazil partner with United.

You can save money and miles if you book your first flight from your home country to either Cuiaba or Campo Grande using these partners rather than booking just to Rio or Sao Paulo.  Bus travel in Brazil ranges from the very basic to luxury “executivo” buses.  If you want to do both areas – north & south, then I recommend taking the bus and booking a lodge along the Trans-Pantaniera so you can just hop out.  You could also drive but check the drop off fees first.

Pantanal

 

THE THREE BASIC WAYS TO VISIT THE PANTANAL

  1.  Join a longer birding tour that includes the Pantanal and has a guide accompanying the group.  This is the easiest option and also the most expensive.  I can’t really recommend one tour over another as I am not the group tour type but you can start by googling “Pantanal Birding Tour”.
  2.   Book a package from a Brazilian tour operator that only includes the Pantanal component of the trip.  We used Open Door Tur back in 2007 and were happy with the service.  There are other local companies which can be found with a search but I don’t know enough about any of them to make a recommendation.  This option is a nice compromise between budget and DIYing as you still get local birding guides and transport out to the lodge you will be staying at.  This is the option we did during our first visit in July 2007 via Campo Grande to Caiman Ecological Refuge.  I had also booked a day with the Arara Azul volunteers which took the place of the usual tourist activities and was the highlight of our trip!
  3.   DIY the whole thing.  Book a rental car, book a lodge and drive yourself.  The lodges will have guides available and you can make a day trip to places like Pousada Araras with a guide to show you the birds.  This is what we did on our Sept 2012 trip.  After calling several lodges and finding a few of them fully booked, we found the Curicaca Wildlife Refuge and booked in for a couple days and rented a car from Hertz in Cuiaba to drive ourselves out there.  It wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be but we did end up with an excellent experience and saw lots of birds!

Of course detailed posts on all of the above will be forthcoming in this series!

Introduction To The Pantanal

Posted on by

Over the next few weeks I will be doing a series on our historical travels to the Panatanal in Brazil.  The first trip to the Pantanal was to the southern section accessed from Campo Grande and took place in July 2007.  It was an organized 3 night 4 days tour staying at Caiman Ecological Refuge with a very special day spent with the volunteers of Projeto Arara Azul. I had posted about it on Feathered and Free shortly afterward so I do have information I would have otherwise struggled to remember!

100_5528

The second trip was to the northern section of the Pantanal accessed from Cuiaba and took place in 2012.  This was a DIY trip using miles and points as much as possible and we drove ourselves part way down the Trans-Pantaniera in a rental car.  Two completely different ways to experience the magnificent Pantanal!

Since I was concentrating on birds, I didn’t see many mammals so here’s a realy nice video I found on Youtube showing some amazing footage of jaguars, monkeys, capybaras and more!  There are a few bird clips and a finale at Iguazu Falls at the end.  So for today, relax and enjoy the video, then I will start showing you how to organize your own trip!

 

Cruise Ship Birding Made Simple

Posted on by

A few months ago, I did a series targeted to the budget birder on birding from a cruise ship and how to put together your own birding cruise.  Although this way does save you money and you can choose any ship you prefer, there is also an option for those who prefer an organized group birding cruise.  Carefree Birding offers a variety of itineraries mostly around the Caribbean.  You basically book the cruise component through their travel agency and then book a birding package for those who wish to go on the birding shore excursions (non-birding family members don’t have to book the excursions).  This offers a nice option if you are short of time to do your own legwork in booking private birding shore excursions such as I did.  Since you have to use their travel agency you do lose out on airline miles for booking through a frequent flyer mile portal such as United Cruises or bargaining for the cruise fare on Cruise Compete, but for many people time = money so they prefer to have everything organized for them.

James Currie of Birding Adventures did a cruise on the Celebrity Equinox (ship details here) and you can see what a typical birding cruise is like on his videos.

Costa Rica, Belize & Cozumel – it was nice to see their visit to Crooked Tree in Belize.  I did this as a land trip and had a different experience because I was targeting parrots and didn’t do the water excursion.

Panama, Grand Cayman & Cartegena, Colombia – I wish I had known about the botanical gardens in Grand Cayman as we went to a different place back in 2008.  I like their option better!

A Step Closer To Seeing Wild Cuban Amazon Parrots

Posted on by

The United States and Cuba have agreed to restore scheduled commercial airline service for the first time in more than five decades in a deal allowing 110 round-trip flights a day between the former Cold War foes.  More details in this article.

This is great news to anyone who wants to go birding in Cuba and hopefully see Cuban Amazon parrots!   Tourism is still not a legitimate reason for Americans to visit Cuba but “educational tours” are and I would consider birding as educational.

In the meanwhile, you can still see their cousins – Cayman Amazon Parrots in nearby Grand Cayman.

100_9539