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“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” –Mark Jenkins

Wednesday, 13 August 2014

Wow - Giant Armadillos!?

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/05/07/diggers-in-the-dark-discovering-giant-armadillos-in-brazils-pantanal/

The first thing this adult female does when leaving the safety of the burrow is to check the area for threats.
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Monday, 4 August 2014

Back to the quack..

So it's less than 2 months to go now which means it's the dreaded docs for jabs again. I was horrified to find out it's the worst one for me that's run out.... Yellow Fever... not happy.
Booked in for this Thursday and I have a sneaky suspicion that means that my Typhoid and Hep A have also run out.


Chaco chachalaca bird
Took my camera out to Rais Wood yesterday and am so relieved my loyalty held and I wasn't tempted to go with a new Nikon. Everything is so familiar with my Pentax and it performs well. It's a massive improvement on the gear I had when I last went to Brazil, as are my skills, but right now I am more excited about simply seeing, hearing and smelling it all again... the kites, the kingfishers, the giant river otters and even the smelly bats. The dusty roads and endless water pools with hyacinth floating all the way to the horizon, the Jacaré performing their awesome territory calls each morning - I can't wait to be woken by the incessant Chaco chachalaca birds - the noisiest of them all.
I am travelling a day early this time too - in 2007 we started off badly with flight delays and severe sleep deprivation which I never really recovered from. So this time I will be travelling a day early, alone, and spending the first night in a very nice hotel close to Cuiaba airport to relax and prepare - so very excited.  The one thing I am not looking forward to are the biting insects... I know with my apparently intoxicating blood I will never win the war, but round two of this particular battle is mine - after the last trip to the region I returned so battered, bitten and swollen, that in hindsight it was a good thing the hot water and heating had failed in my house, as the UK winter cold numbed the pain (a memory I can't seem to shake).
This time will be different - I am armed with an obscene amount of vitamin B12, a supply of DEET sufficient to melt my entire collection of lenses and, of course, marmite now comes in a squeezy plastic container and so is also coming with me. To the bad-boy bugs of Brazil - me and my blood are ready for you - you will NOT be sucking more than is fair on this trip.
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