Day Visit To Araras Eco-Lodge

When I was doing the planning for this trip, I really wanted to stay here but it’s just so difficult to book it if you aren’t on some kind of package tour.  Their website doesn’t even have prices or a booking page!  I decided to take a chance they may have unbooked roooms when we arrived and we could get a good last minute deal.  It wasn’t to be, when I called the day before, I found out that they were fully booked.  They did offer day visits in which one of their guides takes you around the property and shows you the wildlife.  In 2012 it was around $25-ish per person and we ended up having a late lunch there too.

Driving into the property

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A Chestnut-eared Aracari welcomed us in.ZA-03

Gift shop and dining room where we had a very late lunch.

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Rooms

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Swimming pool

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Red Capped Cardinals bathing

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Now the Chestnut-eared Aracari has a friend

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Red Capped Cardinals eating ZA-08 ZA-12

Quakers foraging in the grass and in trees above

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Blue Crowned Conure  ZA-17 ZA-18 ZA-19 ZA-20

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Quakers, Peach-fronted Conures and other birds foraging on the lawn

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All this in just a couple hours in the late afternoon at Araras Eco-Lodge!

Driving The Trans-Pantaneira – Independent Birding

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.

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

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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.

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

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Cuiaba – Gateway To The Northern Pantanal, Brazil

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.

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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.

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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!

 

Toco Toucan (Ramphastos toco)

The Toco Toucan (Ramphastos toco), also known as the common toucan or toucan, is the largest and probably the best known species in the toucan family. It is found in semi-open habitats throughout a large part of central and eastern South America.

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They have a large range covering Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina.  It is very easy to find them in the Pantanal of Brazil especially on the fruit trees.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT TOCO TOUCANS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

National Geographic

VIDEOS

Some amazing close-up footage!

 

Blue-fronted Amazon (Amazona aestiva)

The Blue-fronted Amazon (Amazona aestiva), also called the Turquoise-fronted Amazon and Blue-fronted Parrot, is a South American species of amazon parrot.  Its common name is derived from the distinctive blue marking on its head just above its beak.

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They range throughout southern South America in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay & Bolivia.  I have seen them both at the Caiman Ecological Refuge & Curicaca Wildlife Refuge in the Pantanal.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT BLUE-FRONTED AMAZONS

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

VIDEOS

I think this is a young one by his hesitant way of moving around.

Ready for their close-ups!

 

 

A Day With Caiman Ecological Resort, Pantanal

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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Nanday Parakeet (Aratinga nenday)

The Nanday Parakeet (Aratinga nenday) also known as the Black-hooded Parakeet or Nanday Conure (most common name used by aviculturists) is a medium-small mostly green Neotropical parrot.  They are extremely popular as pets so most of you will be familiar with their appearance but what you may not know is that the eye-rings of the wild birds remains black.  The eye-rings of pet birds tend to be white due to lack of sun.

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Compare the dark eye-ring of the wild bird in the top photo to this one of my pet Nanday where you can clearly see the white eye-ring.

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The range of Nanday Parakeets extends from southern Brazil throughout the Pantanal region into far eastern Bolivia and down to Paraguay.  The Pantanal is the easiest place to see them and they are can usually be found in the trees around Caiman Ecological Refuge.  I have also seen feral populations of escaped/released pet birds in Florida and heard of others in California.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT NANDAY PARAKEETS

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEOS

Since these birds are so popular as pets it was hard to find videos of them in the wild.  Here’s a couple.

 

 

A Day With Projeto Arara Azul, Pananal

Continued from Caiman Ecologico Refuge review.

This was by far the most exciting part of the trip – a chance to see how the volunteers of Projeto Arara Azul research the Hyacinth Macaws and other birds in the area!

Cezar, Julianne and Karla picked us up right after breakfast in a 4WD truck.  They were all kitted out with climbing gear so I knew they would be climbing trees to inspect nests.

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Cezar really knows his birds, every time we passed any bird (or mammal), he would tell Julianne what number it was in the field guide and she would point it out to me so I could see what it was in English.  We saw lots of hawks, toucans and water birds  and a jabiru stork nest.  And lots of parrots!

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Flock of Nanday Parakeets.

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First we went to a nest occupied by two Hyacinths; Karla climbed up and saw no eggs so came back down.  They have natural nest which are 95% in Manduvai trees.  They have to compete for these nests with other birds and have lost many potential nests to deforestation so the Arara Azul people have constructed artificial nests.  Their program is very successful as the macaw population was less than 1500 at one point and now there are over 6000 Hyacinths in the  Pantanal!

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As we drove from one nest to another, the parents would fly off angrily and squawk their heads off complaining as the team took turns climbing the tree to see if there were eggs.  Sometimes we got lucky!

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It was just the start of the breeding season now so many couples were preparing the nests with woodchips.  Sadly some eggs the team had found before had been stolen by predators.

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We saw several Blue-fronted Amazons and some Yellow-collared Macaws.

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There is one pair of Greenwing Macaws who have a nest but weren’t around it so we didn’t see them.  The highlight came at the end of the day when the team inspected a nest that was known to have eggs in it and found two baby Hyacinth chicks!

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After the day’s work, we returned to the Arara Azul office and Julianne showed us the usual slide show they show normal tourists but we had missed because we weren’t on the normal tour.

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It tells about the Hyacinth Macaw, the Project and what we can do to help.  Don’t buy illegally imported birds stolen from the wild.  Don’t buy products made with feathers  (like this one found in a Rio hotel)  from Macaws and Parrots as the birds are either killed to get the feathers or so badly injured, they die anyway.

They have a gift shop which helps support the project but unfortunately they don’t take credit cards (I wish I had known that before) so I bought just a few small things as much as I could.  I really love this clay rosary with birds!

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They were rehabilitating an injured Female Hyacinth they named Kris.  She was rescued from certain death as a caiman (alligator) and caught her by the tail when she was either drinking or bathing in the lake.  Thank God a cowboy was nearby and rescued her and brought her to the project to be rehabilitated.  She had lost her tail and couldn’t fly or eat.

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Now she is almost ready to be released back to the wild but she still needs to be able to crack the Acuri nuts by herself.  I wanted to give her a big hug but they don’t encourage showing affection to Macaws that need to be released to the wild and they don’t want them friendly to humans.  I did get to scratch her head a bit while one of the volunteers held her.

We rejoined the other tourists for dinner. They had done the usual lodge tours but they didn’t see half of what we did, I was so happy we went!  After dinner there was a slide show about the Caiman resort which was very interesting.

Scaly-headed Parrot (Pionus maximiliani)

The Scaly-headed Parrot (Pionus maximiliani) is a species of bird in the Psittacidae family, the true parrots. It is also called scaly-headed pionus, Maximilian pionus, Maximilian parrot, Maximilian’s pionus, or Maximilian’s parrot.

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They have a large range in eastern Brazil, central and eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, and northern Argentina.  Many people see them in the Pantanal, especially in the Caiman Ecological Refuge area.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT SCALY-HEADED PARROTS

Wikipedia

World Parrot Trust

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEOS

For some reason these birds always seem to be eating!

 

 

 

Lodge Review: Caiman Ecologico Refuge, Pantanal

*Originally published on Feathered and Free.  These historical reviews are gradually being merged to MTTW.

The Pantanal region of Brazil is one of the “holy grails” of any parrot lover or bird watcher. This vast wetland wilderness is home to the rare Hyacinth Macaw as well as some commonly found species such as Nanday Conures, Amazons, Quakers and Maximilian Pionus. I began researching two years in advance on the internet to insure we would have the best possible experience. I like to give preference to ecotourism projects that benefit endangered species and provide employment opportunities to locals who might otherwise have engaged in the heinous practice of poaching. After careful consideration, I chose the Refugio Ecologico Caiman because it is home to the Projeto Arara Azul founded by Neiva Guedes. This project has been instrumental in bringing back the Hyacinth Macaw from near extinction and studying their breeding habits. The project has succeeded in bringing the population of Hyacinth Macaws from 1500 to 6000!   Since 2007, small groups can arrange to accompany the volunteers of the project on their daily activities and studies.

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I arranged our package through Open Door Tur which is a reliable tour operator based in Campo Grande, Brazil. Campo Grande is the gateway to the Pantanal and is accessed by plane from Sao Paulo or by bus from many Brazilian cities. We took the comfortable overnight bus from Foz do Iguacu and spent one day in Campo Grande to rest up before our big adventure.

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Sylvia from Open Door Tur picked us up at our hotel and took us on the 3.5 hour drive to Refugio Ecologico Caiman.

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We were met on arrival by the staff and immediately shown to a room near the swimming pool at Sede Lodge.

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Everyone was very friendly and they explained about the board with the tours and activities.  They divide everyone into two groups-yellow (English) and blue (Portuguese).  A buffet lunch was served at noon and then we discovered that so far, we were the only tourists to arrive in our yellow group.

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The flights were still chaotic and everyone else was delayed.  While resting after lunch, I heard the distinctive Macaw squawk and ran out into the garden to see two Hyacinth Macaws munching on nuts in a palm tree right there in the hotel garden!  Not even on a tour and already seeing Hyacinths!!!

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The afternoon activity was the bike ride and it was only us and the guide, two other guides went along just for the fun of it, nothing else to do.  Rheas which look like ostritches were on the grounds.

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We had barely gotten out the gate when we saw about 7 or 8 Hyacinths flying around so I leapt off the bike to grab pics.

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Then we passed the small airstrip and there were 2 mango trees just full of parrots-BF Amazons, Nandays and Maximillian Pionus!

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I flat out refused to leave the area, lucky there were no other tourists in the group!  Ina and one of the guides biked on ahead but later on, he said he didn’t see anything else.  The other guide finally managed to drag me away from the parrot trees kicking and screaming!  

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We reconfirmed with the people from Projecto Arara Azul for tomorrow.  Cezar and one of the volunteers who spoke English-Julianne would be taking us with them on their normal daily routine.  Neiva Guedes, the manager was out of the area so I didn’t get to meet her.  Cezar runs the show in the field now with help of 3 volunteers.

Dinner was at 7:30, a nice buffet.  Some of the other yellow group tourists had started to arrive, quite a mix-Americans, French, Belgians and Dutch.  We jad a short night safari to see nocturnal animals which were VERY hard to spot and it was freezing cold!  Then we made an early night so we could get up early for tomorrow.

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To be Continued…………………………..