We hit up the breakfast buffet just before they closed at 8am, which meant we were virtually the only people there. The food options were a bit limited throughout this trip into the Pantanal, and we were glad to be done with it all. Perhaps there will be options other than rice and pound cake in our future. But there would be no lunch today, as we would have to drive 5+ hours back to Cuiabá on the Transpantaneira.
We bid adieu to the capybaras lounging around the property and Nicole took the first shift on the unpaved road. It was much warmer out today and perhaps it’s best that we weren’t out on the water all day getting scorched. The elder folk must not be handling it well. Last night whilst we were playing a competitive game of table tennis, a gathering of elder men sat in front of a tv in the game room to do a seminar on photo editing. Nicole and I were both eavesdropping and confused. You see, these men were the very same ones who had multiple 600mm telephoto lenses larger than my legs that probably also cost at least a leg (and maybe an arm), and yet they were being taught the most rudimentary photo editing.
Nicole and I thought there is normally a general order of progression in hobbies. You get interested, start yourself off with a cheaper camera and equipment, then teach yourself some techniques along the way, learn by doing, maybe get more interested, THEN buy really expensive stuff to support that continued interest. Starting off with top-of-the-line to glass that you don’t know how to use and working your way backwards to understand the basics of photography struck us as . . .odd, or at maybe these people just had so much money, they didn’t know what to do with it.
The warmer temperatures seemed to affect what kinds of wildlife sightings we saw on our way back. Where there had been dozens of caimans previously, now we would only see a handful. We did however see quite a few birds including the Jabiru stork. Nicole managed to find a bathroom about halfway into the drive. She remarked that for being in the middle of nowhere, it was surprisingly clean and well maintained. After another three hours or so, we arrived back at the Localiza car rental drop off. It was a busy time and our car was proudly the dirtiest there. I had prepaid for the car wash, which gave me a 60% discount. I’m quite sure the car needed it.
We were about three hours early to our flight, so after checking in for our flight to São Paulo, we checked out a priority pass lounge, which we left within 5 minutes due to overcrowding and eventually worked our way over to the adjacent priority pass lounge. It initially wasn’t much better, but it had a little alcove that we tucked into and the crowd thinned out after a few minutes.
We got snacks to double as a lunch and there were even made-to-order food items available. Everything else in the airport terminal looked like days old pastries, so I figured this was about as good as it was going to get. Boarding our GOL flight happened a bit behind schedule. We ended up being the very last people to board the specially painted 737. We both got window seats, which means we were separated into 20A and 21F. The plane was pushing shortly after we buckled in.
As seems customary with flights going into São Paulo, it was a bumpy arrival. Thunderstorms blanketed the area, and it seemed we were deviating a lot, which led to some delays. Once finally on the ground, we waited almost an hour to get our bags. GOL has a 12kg limit, so we had to check them. Being that we were last to board, it was quite a relief to see them coming down the luggage carousel. Then we attempted to check-in to our airport hotel. Called the Fast Sleep, it’s literally in the airport terminal (though on the outside of security).
But despite having booked a double room, we were given two bunk beds. When approaching the counter about this issue, we were told that they could only switch us to the room we booked (and had proof of) if we paid another $30. That seemed real dumb, so I called ID90 who to their credit, tried to battle it out with the hotel over the phones, but they wouldn’t budge. And thus we checked into our bunk beds and tried to get some semblance of sleep in our tiny little playpen of a room before our early flight tomorrow morning. Oy vey.
passports & pepto bismol 