Porto Jofre Morning Safari Day One

I had a dreadful night: my shoulder, back, wrist, knee, pelvis, and ankle were all hurting at some stage, and my stomach felt very unsettled (I still have the runs); while David spent the night coughing and blowing his nose. I finally give in and get up just after 04:00.

David decides to stay in bed for the morning, so I go out with Roberto in a boat to see if we can find any jaguars. The Pantanal is said to have the world's highest density of these beautiful cats, and Porto Jofre is known as Jaguar Central, so I am hoping we'll get lucky.

We agreed quite early on at the planning stage that we didn't want to be in a group (too many bad experiences as a photographer on group tours), so we paid extra and upgraded to a private tour. Seeing some of the bigger boats with up to 12 people in them, I am grateful for the small four-seater boat with me, Roberto and Captain Dinio.

We leave the hotel before dawn, and the sunrise is beautiful with the early morning mist hanging over the water! It is surprisingly cold this morning with the wind from the moving boat. I am glad I listened to Roberto and put a wind-proof jacket on!

We are heading in a leisurely fashion towards an area where jaguars were spotted yesterday, stopping to photograph the birds and animals we see along the way.

Bat Falcon

Pied Lapwings making baby lapwings

Black Skimmer

Large Billed Tern

Green Iguana

All the boat captains are in touch via radio, and we get word that some guests from the hotel have seen a family of five otters, so we decide to go there to check it out.

It seems to take forever to get there, as the captain is very courteous and slows right down every time we pass fishermen in their boats. I worry that the otters will be gone by the time we get there.

Giant River Otters
The otters are still around, eating fish. They are quite large (I guess there's a hint in the name), and they have viciously sharp teeth. You can easily hear the crunching of the fish bones as they eat.

Other Wildlife

Cocoi Heron

White Winged Swallow

Wood Stork

Great Egret

Neotropic Cormorants

Amazon Kingfisher

Black Crowned Night Heron

Wattled Jacana

Anhinga drying its wings

Caiman

Southern Screamer

Brown Capuchin

Crane Hawk

Lesser Yellow Hooded Vulture

Toco Toucan

A passing boat indicates to us that they have heard of a sighting, so "hold on to your hats, it is full speed ahead!" Sod the fishermen, this is business!

Jaguar
The first hint that there is something of interest, is a boat jam!

At first, I can't spot the cat, as she is doing her best to be camouflaged (very successfully) while she stalks an unsuspecting caiman through the long grass at the riverbank.

Her camouflage skills are better than her hunting skills this morning, however, as she pounces with a menacing growl, the caiman gets away with a large splash at the last minute!

The look of dejection on her face as the caiman gets away!

The jaguar walks along the bank. We follow.

She stops. We stop.

She turns around. We turn around. We lose sight of her for a while and thinking she might have wandered over to the other side of the peninsula, we check it out. Nope. We return to the original side just as she appears out of the undergrowth.

Soon she gets fed up with sitting on a log and disappears into the undergrowth again.

Our next spotting is one of her two sub-adult cubs in a tree further down the bank.

The other one is hidden in the thicket behind the tree.

Meanwhile, mum is keeping an eye on them from the riverbank.

We're all getting roasted by the fierce sun while waiting for further action.

Mum is fidgety and heads along the edge of the river towards where her babies are.

She looks straight at us and heads for the water.

There is a strict code of conduct for boat safaris in the Pantanal, and keeping at least 25 metres away from any big cats is one of them. When it looks like she is going to swim across the river, all the boat captains move to a respectable distance.

As it turns out, she swims away from us along the bank and disappears into the jungle further along.

It's time to head back for lunch. Last night Roberto suggested we start at 06:00 this morning, and be back at the hotel between 10:00 and 10:30. It is now 12:30, and lunch is served in half an hour. David must be wondering what on earth has happened to us!

When I get back to the hotel, I find David sitting outside the room. While he is up and about, he does not look well, with his right eye swollen and watering. He tells me he is feeling slightly better and we both go off for some lunch.

Thank you to Undiscovered Destinations for arranging this trip for us.