Pantanal, Brazil

Went to the Brazilian Panatanal for 3 days. The Pantanal is basically a big wetland where there are a lot of different animal species living. They have a huge array of birds plus a lot of Cayman and Piranha, and apparently Anaconda and Jaguar but unfortunatly we didn't get to see either of these. It was a pretty amazing place but it was not something I would recommend people do as you can see a lot of the birds and animals during other adventures in South America. Had a good time though and did some horse back riding through the water in a mission to find anaconda. Was good fun as we got the horses to the point of almost needing to swim. Also did some walking through the swampy waters which I felt wasn't the brightest idea as it was where the cayman and anaconda hang out but was a cool adventure. Did a spot of Piranha fishing again and this time came up trumps so heres some photographic proof of the fishing as well.

My Piranha which I caught with my trusty piece of bamboo and a short piece of line with a hook.

A close up of one of the many Piranha we caught. There vicious looking little buggers with four rows of razor sharp teeth.

Callum managed to catch a Cayman while Piranha fishing. Certainly cleared everyone out of the water pretty quickly as we had all been standing knee deep in the lagoon trying to catch Piranha. He was the only one to catch a Cayman. Didn't get to eat it either unfortunatly.

Callum, Myself and Andrew filleting Piranha before we cook them up and eat them. Callum went for the over kill knife with his filleting. Not an easy task filleting a fish that small.

A Cayman just chilling in the sun between the main courtyard and our dorm where we all slept in hammocks.

More Cayman...

All prettied up in my things from the Pantanal. The necklace is made from a water lilly and the christmas tree looking thing came from inside the piece of wood in my right hand which came out of a type of palm tree. Was pretty awesome.

If you look hard theres a Tucan in the top of the tree. Saw a few Tucan in the Pantanal but it was hard to get close to any.

The sun setting over the Pantanal!

Rio Prata, Bonito, Brazil

Went to a place called Bonito in Brazil, it is famous for its fresh water snorkelling. You can do all sorts of different snorkelling and scuba diving around this area in some of the clearest water in the world. Some of the options such as the abseil into a cave followed by scuba diving were expensive so I opted for a river float which was well worth the money. We floated down stream letting the current carry us for two hours and saw some amazing sites. During this trip the river wasn't deep but you were not allowed to touch the bottom to ensure the surroundings were not ruined. Was a really good day out!



Showing my appreciation of the scenery!

Saw plenty of fish along the way. Just one of the many little schools!

This fulla was pretty damn ugly. Was the only type of fish I was afraid might tear me apart. He was pretty big and had a good set of teeth on him.

One of the many springs as we floated down stream.

More fish. We saw so many different species and there was no point when there wasn't a fish within sight. Most of the fish got close enough to you to touch them also.

The surroundings we had to deal with. Not only were the fish awesome but so was the rest of the underwater scenery.

Pretty stoaked about our day!

Paraguay

Skipped the boarder into Paraguay for a few hours from Brazil. Easiest boarder thus far I have needed to cross. You don't need a passport and just drive straight across the bridge. Was like chalk and cheese as a comparison from Paraguay back to Brazil. Paraguay is by far a lot poorer but because of this has a lot more character at this particular point of the boarder. Everything was a lot cheaper in Paraguay than Brazil and it was back to Spannish speaking rather than Brazils Portuguesse.


Heres a picture of us walking down one of the streets of Paraguay. Back to the road side stalls. Today was quiet as it was a holiday of some sort in Paraguay. Had enough time to get a beer in in Paraguay.

We also went on this same day to the point where the three countries meet. Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. These flags were on the wall of the building sitting beside the river at this point.

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

For me this was, next to Machu Picchu, the highlight of the South American trip. I struggle to see anything being more amazing than this set of amazing water falls. Iguazu falls is an area of 250 waterfalls with huge amounts of power. They are apparently the most powerful waterfalls in the world and we managed to catch them at there most powerful point which occurs once every four years. While we were there 6,000 cubic metres of water was flowing over the falls every second. It's a lot of water and makes a lot of noise but I could have sat and watched it for hours on end. I didn't want to leave this truly amazing place at the end of the day. A lot of photos just to try and get a perspective but to really get the full brunt you need to see it for yourself.

Standing toward the base of one of the smaller falls. Because of the power we couldn't go right to the end of the plat form but here I got absolutly drenched.


Went on a jet boat and zoomed around the base of some of the falls. Again got drenched but managed to get some good pictures when the camera could come out. This here is just again a small portion of the falls.

Posing in front of some falls now standing up on top of them. A walkway went a long way across the top of the falls and at points you could look straight down the waterfall. The falls are curling right behind me stretching for ages.

Here I was standing on a platform where the fall was not only in front of me but falling from underneath me as well.

Looking across some of the 250 falls!

'Garganta del Diablo' The trail to 'The Devils Throat'. This is the largest waterfall of Iguazu Falls and it alone has 2,000 cubic metres of water flowing over it every second. Seeing this amount of water fall over a drop all at once is something special and extremely loud.

To get to 'The Devils Throat' we walked a boardwalk across part of the river supplying the large waterfall. It was a kilometre walk and we were only about half way across it. This picture is approaching the falls.

Repping the chiefs jersey at 'The Devils Throat'!

Looking across the horse shoe shaped falls to the water plumbiting. Pictures do not do the volumes justice.

Looking to the falls directly beside us. We are again standing on top of the water fall so can see the water dropping from directly beneath us.

This video shows 'The Devils Throat's' power a bit better but you need to be there to really capture the power!

Rafting and Zip-Lining, Salta, Argentina

After Bolivia we headed on into Argentina. Was by far the longest wait time to get over the boarder but well worth the wait. Argentina is beautiful and everything was really cheap. In Argentina they serve some of the biggest steaks I have ever seen. If you order a steak you will only get steak with no sauces or anything and it will take up the whole of your dinner plate costing about $15NZ at a nice restraunt. It was awesome. If you are a vegetarian in Argentina you would struggle to survive as all they seem to eat is meat. They also have amazing red wine. Didn't drink red at all before going there but again it is cheap and very nice. You can even buy it by the litre in jugs, my kind of wine drinking. The restraunts and bars are open really late to. We went out to dinner one night at 12:30am and left the restraunt at 2:30am. From here we then went onto a 'Discoteca' (night club) which closed at 6:30am. Crazy place.
Loved Argentina so much, would love to go and spend more time there. So much going on.

So while we were in Argentina we went to an awesome campsite on one of the rivers a couple of hours out of Salta. Here we went white water rafting and did some zip-lining. Was a cool setup all down in a valley.



Here the group is all setup to go rafting for the next two hours. Took two dogs with us as well. Don't know what they were there for but they enjoyed themselves.

Here you can see one of the dogs just standing up to the turbulent waters. Nothing seemed to phase them. A couple of times they even just decided to jump out into the rapids and swim down them.
About to get absolutly soaked. Was a pretty good rafting trip with a lot of rapids.

The rafters posing for the camera. Also pretty stoked none of us had just fallen out.

At the end of the day we all sat around the camp fire with some beers from up at the campsites bar after we had been fed a huge meaty dinner. Great campsite and experience.

Sorry no photos of the zip-lining was a bit hard to get decent ones. Was basically a huge flying fox that weaved four times across a valley down to the river. Started about 200 metres up so you managed to get some awesome speed up and was a primo view through the valley.

The Extreme Fun Pub, Uyuni, Bolivia

Alright so I had to mention this place even though I don't have many appropriate to all eyes photos to put up. While we were at the salt flats we stayed two nights in Uyuni. We had spotted the first day when we arrived a pub by the name of 'The Extreme Fun Pub. With a name like that you couldn't really ignore not going to it. So after the salt flats we decided to visit it for the night. The idea we discovered of the extreme fun pub was to have a go at some challenges which people from all over the world had attempted when visiting the pub. It became a pretty messy night. There were solo challenges and also challenges for pairs. After two of the other boys on the tour attempted the pair challenge the pressure went on me and Callum. After a fairly large amount of persuasion we decided to give the 10 shot challenge a go. It consisted of 10 brutal mixes of alcohol. For example one of the shots was a mug full of beer but it had 6 shot glasses connected to it around the outside so when you poured the mug all the shots intertwined in the beer, these included, vodka, rum, tequila, gin, and a couple of others. Luckily that was Callums half of the challenge. I had to take on the beer mug that was like a breast with beer and tequila in it as one of my shots. Everything was equally as brutal. One way to feel slightly ill and be instantly drunk. Here are the pictures.

Me and Callum preparing for the challenge. Pretty mixed emotions here. I believe my face pretty much says how I felt about it. We did alright though and completed the 10 shots in 54secs. Was no record breaker though with the record sitting around 36secs. The individual record was 33secs. In the background are all the times and nationalitys posted on the walls and ceiling of all the people who had attempted it previously. If anyone visits look out for names on the wall. It is a must see pub.

The contestants of the night with our feelings after the completion. From left, Karl, Andrew, Myself and Callum.

Great night out, and this wasn't the only challenge completed by members of our tour group. You could try and beat times in all sorts of events but that was by far the worse.

Salt Flats, Uyuni, Bolivia

While in Bolivia we did a massive detour from Potosi out to Uyuni where we stayed two nights and visited the Salt Flats. These salt flats are the biggest in the world and for most of the year are under water. Some of the area in the salt flats is ploughed up and the salt is processed for use throughout South America. The salt flats stretched as far as the eye could see and were extremely impressive. We drove out onto the salt flats for 80km to where we got some awesome photos.


We decided to make a day of it out at the salt flats and filled up the chilli bin with beers. (Couldn't find any ice in Bolivia to get the beers cold as ice is not required with such cold temperatures at night) In the back ground is Bernie the truck we travelled Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil on, at this point in time he has broken down in front of the military headquarters, just managed to get it going before having to leave Uyuni. Had a BBQ out at the salt flats as well.


As we were getting onto the salt flats there was a random train graveyard that somehow the Bolivians had turned into a tourist attraction. It was like a big rusty childrens playground really where you could climb through all the trains. Pretty random!


These mounds of salt have been harvested up by different families. Each family has an area that they slice layers off the flats and mound it up to be dried and bagged for sale. The salt flats were really wet under foot and the ground was really cold.

The main attraction for tourists in the Salt Flats is taking pictures where depth perception is lost. I'm actually about 10 metres behind Callum in this picture.

Again a lack of depth perception. This is just a toy dinosaur about 8 inches tall.

And a small tower of the empty beer cans which me and Dave tried to conquer.