This Brazilian wildlife hotspot is cheaper than an African safari

Independent

4 days ago

With its elongated nose, 60cm-long tongue and wiry, feather-duster tail, it's hard to see a giant anteater as anything more than the fever dream of a desperate cartoonist. My guide Dai Scapini has bundled me out of our van in southwest Brazil, and we're watching as it swaggers across the dirt road, its white and black-banded body sashaying a bushy tail with each step.
We can get so close because this creature's hearing and sight are sufficiently poor that it could do with a cane to get around. But its comedic nose makes up for these shortcomings; soon it smells us and flees into the bushes, leaving just one beady eye peering vexatiously through the undergrowth.
Brazil's stunning coast hit our screens last year when it appeared in the second series of Celebrity Race Across the World. However, I've been lured to this South American country for an entirely different reason. Sometimes dubbed the Brazilian Serengeti, the Pantanal contains the highest concentration of wildlife in South America – even more so than the Amazon Jungle. And while Africa has become synonymous with safaris, more affordable Brazil has flown under the radar. Catching the Great Migration through Tanzania and Kenya or spotting the notorious 'Big Five' game animals comes with a sobering price tag: seven-day holidays rarely cost less than £3,000 per person.
But Brazil has its own 'Big Five': the capybara, giant river otter, maned wolf, jaguar, and – tick – the giant anteater. With all-inclusive lodges costing from £120 per person per night, it promises an affordable alternative to a traditional safari.
Much the same as the savanna of Tanzania's Serengeti, the Pantanal is a flat expanse of grassland, stippled by islands of lollypop-shaped carnauba palms and knobbly-trunked trumpet trees. And, much like Botswana's Okavango Delta, the land transforms with the seasons, flooding between May and October to become a glassy wetland twice the size of Iceland. Wildlife watching is centred around the region's farms; 95 per cent of the Pantanal lies within private land, which has been squeezed into regimented fields and planted with distinctive white zebu cattle, whose humps of muscle and fat on their necks are a local delicacy.
My first stop, three and a half hours by mostly paved road from the regional airport, Campo Grande, and 20 minutes beyond our giant anteater encounter, is Pousada Pequi, a family-run lodge and working ranch. It offers homely simplicity, plus an introduction to the region's nature; burnt orange passion butterflies flutter on pink ixora bushes and blue and yellow macaws screech from the acai palms.
In the early mornings and late afternoons, I hop into their jeep, whose tiered, open-air seating replicates those used for game drives in Africa, and we rattle along meandering tracks through the savannah.
Giant anteaters are the lodge's main draw; however, its birdlife is legendary, too. Dai points out treetop boxes built to mimic the nests of the Pantanal's trademark bird, the hyacinth macaw. She tells me how thirty years ago, only 500 remained in the wild: 'more as a pet in the US than free in Brazil.' Macaws are particular to a fault about where they nest; deforestation of the manduvi tree meant human housebuilding was the only way to save the species. Since then, the population has exploded to 10,000; we don't have to go far before we spot these huge birds, inky blue like dusk, squabbling in the trees.
I continue northwest to Fazenda San Francisco, where half of its 15,000 hectares of cattle land and rice paddies have been set aside for conservation. Dai drops a bombshell: giant river otters are possible but rare to see here, and there's no time to visit Fazenda Barranco Alto, a lodge further north where they're far easier. But I've high hopes for two more of Brazil's Big Five: the capybara and the jaguar. After all, conservationists estimate that the Pantanal contains the highest density of jaguars in the Americas — that's around 15 per cent of the world's population.
I'm received by Roberta Coelho, one of the owners, who bears good news. She signals with her bamboo cane down the lodge's drive: 'Last night, a jaguar walked right down this road,' she informs me eagerly. A seven-year research project estimated that up to twenty individuals inhabit the area, attracted by easy access to their favourite foods: capybara, caiman and marsh deer. Visitors spot one nearly every night, and last night was no different. It also included two very special sightings: the normally hard-to-find ocelot, plus a maned wolf, so elusive that in 10 years of guiding, Dai has only seen one four times.
There's plenty to do on the ranch while I wait. A boardwalk over a swollen river offers a stroll across a bewitching landscape of palm trees reflected in silvery water, while a sunset paddle by kayak on a small lake allows me to drift beside families of capybara, betting on a small island as a safe refuge from the night's predators.
As dusk falls, we head out by jeep, using a powerful torch to scan the fields and trees marking the edges of the dirt road. Suddenly, it alights on a foxlike creature slumbering in tall grasses; it's only when it begins to unfold its great limbs that its distinctive dappled orange and black coat reveals it to be a jaguar. It pays us no heed and begins to stalk through the field, its movements fluid, almost serpentine. We hold our breath, captivated as it lifts its face towards us as if to dare us to follow, before slinking away into the gloom.
Back at the ranch, I reflect on my trip. I didn't see the full five, but I'd been a whisker away from four of them. The Pantanal certainly isn't Africa, but for a wildlife experience as unique as it is affordable, few destinations can compare.
Steph Dyson was hosted by Visit Pantanal.
LATAM flies from London Heathrow to Campo Grande via São Paulo, from £550 return.
Overnight stays at Pousada Pequi and Fazenda San Francisco start from £240 per night, all-inclusive for a double room. English-speaking guides and transfers cost extra. Wildlife watching is best between November and April during the dry season.