The Wildlife and Wildlands

 of Brazil

In June of 2003 I led a two-week nature tour to Brazil. We sampled a wide diversity of habitats, including the dry savanna around the Chapada dos Guimaraes (see the first picture below) escarpment, the rainforests near Alta Floresta, the incredible, vast wetlands of the Pantanal, and the hummingbird-filled mountain forests along Brazil's Atlantic coast.

Ground costs (excluding travel to Brazil) will be [change to past tense from here on...] approximately $2,600 and include a contribution to one of the non-profit conservation groups with which I work (Carolina Raptor Center, Catawba Lands Conservancy, or Audubon-North Carolina).

Our ground agent is Birding Brazil Tours, recently featured in the Sunday New York Times travel section. Birding Brazil is run by Andy Whittaker, who came to Brazil in the early 80s to band birds for me in the Amazonian rainforest and fell so in love with the country that he stayed on and now makes his living leading tours around South America.

Our Itinerary:

June 14 (Saturday): Fly from the US to Sao Paulo. Varig flight 8819 departs 2130h, arrives Sao Paulo 0615h on the 15th. There's a 2 hour time difference, so the flight is about 7 hrs.)

June 15: Arrive in Sao Paulo and connect to a flight (1020AM) to Cuiaba. Arrive Cuiaba at 1235. We'll lunch at one of Brasil's famous churrascaria (barbeque) restaurants before a 1-hour drive onto the top of the escaprment (Chapada) pictured below. We'll spend the night at Pousada Penhasco (see more about this hotel).

A view of the Chapada escarpment.

After checking in at our hotel, the Pousada Penhasco,

those not napping will visit the Bridal Veil Falls,

where we should see all sorts of macaws and other birds.

June 16 (Monday): Those not sleeping off the trip can bird early around the Chapada before driving back down to Cuiaba where we will catch a flight to Alta Floresta ("Tall Forest") in the northern part of the state of Mato Grosso ("Thick Woods").

At the Alta Floresta airport we will be met by our guide, Braulio Carlos, and driven to the banks of the Teles Pires River, where we'll load our gear into motorboats and head up the Teles Pires to the Cristalino River and our  lodge.

June 17-18: We will spend two full days at the Cristalino camp. This is probably the premiere tourist lodge in all of Amazonia. It is in an unbelievably species-rich forest (see a photo taken not too long ago by someone visiting the lodge!). We will walk trails, travel up the river by boat, and climb an observation tower that provides a dramatic view of unbroken rainforest canopy as far as the eye can see. (see more about this lodge.) It doesn't get any better than this!

June 19 (Thursday): After lunch at Cristalino we will boat back to the road and take the van back to Alta Floresta for the night. Here, we'll stay in a nice hotel owned by the same people who own the lodge. The grounds around the hotel are tall forest and the only good habitat for some ways around, so it's sort of a Noah's Ark for quite a bit of rainforest wildlife. I think the last time we were there we saw 5 species of monkeys in one morning!

June 20: We will spend the morning watching birds and monkeys on the hotel grounds before flying back to Cuiaba and on to Pousada Santa Tereza in the Panatanal for the night.  

The Pantanal is the largest fresh-water wetland in the world.

June 21-22 (Saturday-Sunday): Two days to explore with two afternoon boat trips, nights at Santa Tereza. We'll see all the critters above (caiman, Hyacinth Macaws--the largest, stunning macaw in the world, Jabiru Storks)--and plenty more! Anacondas, jaguars, crab-eating wolves, deer, capybara, and birds, birds, birds! To use one of those analogies we all hated in the SATs, the Pantanal is to birds as the African savannahs are to mammals.

June 23: Transfer to Cuiaba to catch a flight to Rio (still working on the flight details here). In Rio, we wil be met by our next guide, Ricardo Parrini, and driven by van to Itatiaia National Park in the Atlantic Forests of Brazil. These spectacular mountain forests are among the most endangered in the world.  Overnight at the Hotel do Ype, a luxurious, private inholding in the park. 

The hotel is famous for its hummingbirds. The ultimate in relaxing birding--sit on the deck of the hotel with a cocktail in one hand and your binoculars in the other and watch a seemingly endless stream of hummingbirds and spectacular tanagers

come to the feeders that festoon the hotel.

June 24-26 (Tuesday-Thursday): Three full days birding here (we'll try to talk you into leaving the hummingbird show and hike in the forest).

June 27: After breakfast and maybe an early lunch (still working on details here) we'll drive back to Rio and spend the afternoon back in civilization. Load up on jewels? Ride the funicular up to Pao de Acucar? Watch the wildlife on Ipanema beach? Opportunities abound. We'll dine in the city before driving out to the airport for our 1130 homeward flight. We will arrive in Miami at 0635.