"[...] she had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited within the next twelvemonth or two." (Jane Austen: Persuasion, 1809)

I am reading this Jane Austen novel that I bought for two pounds at the Recife airport (special offer on English classics) and this quote seemed oddly appropriate. No more on this.

After a pretty heavy last night in Rio we left for the Pantanal, the largest wetland (I think) in the world in the west of Brazil. The Lonely Planet guide was right again, it was a pretty "rough and ready affair": we slept in the middle of nowhere at a campsite in hammocks or tents, took cold showers and got up every day at 6 in the morning in the hope that we would see some wildlife on our early walks. The result: loads of alligators, who are apparently not dangerous to humans; amazing looking birds, including the TUYUYU (symbol of the Pantanal), which is a huge kick-ass bird with a really long red beak; an enormous anteater, while horse-riding; capivara, which is a funny-looking rodent the size of big dog with a square head; and as we were leaving, on the third day, our guides even brought us a 4 meter long anaconda to the camp, just for good measure. We were pretty lucky, a very friendly little man picked us up with his car at the airport, obviously very concerned for our safety and he took us to the hostel from where we could organize everything really easily, so, again, it was all smooth sailing, cold showers notwithstanding.

I also have to do a bit of mea culpa: we have met the first really friendly and cool Israelis, who were in our group on the trip and we are still hanging out with them now in the border town that we are in right now waiting for the train to Bolivia. A nice couple: a short but very handsome boy with his pudgy but really pretty girlfriend and another girl they met along the way. Unlike most of their fellow-countrymen they do not like to travel in large groups and enjoy speaking English with non-Israelis. Although, shockingly, they do not even have to speak English with some of the locals here, because at least a third of the guides who work for the company we traveled with speak almost fluent Hebrew. When I first heard one of the little Indian-looking natives chatter away in Hebrew I thought I was hallucinating, but it turned out to be true and they claim to have learnt it by working for the tourists. Not only do they speak the language, they also keep reassuring the Israelis that they are indeed the chosen people, because they are just so different from everybody else...The image was just so bizarre, I cannot describe it.

These guides are mostly boys in their early twenties, living all year round in the middle of nowhere, without women, which is probably why they are drunk and/or stoned all the time and act really macho and competitive with each other (one of them likened their camp to a pirate ship). At the same time they listen to the cheesiest (and most unbearable) "Julio Iglesias meets American country music" songs about longing for lovers lost/gone/far away, (one of them practically serenaded me while we were walking around in the jungle), which provides a pretty funny counterpoint to the big alligator-killing knives they all carry around in their back pockets.

In addition to the friendly Jews there was a sweet, very accomplished Welsh boy in our group (studying to be a doctor but also a musician and a sportsman, and I found out some interesting things about Wales), with whom we got along very well, and a weird, new-age, magic mushroom-eating fourtysomething Californian traveler type, who had the very annoying tone of voice of a proselytizer, but that was only one of his many annoying habits. On the upside, he was a great source of entertainment...

Our train to Bolivia is leaving in a couple of hours. It will take us about 15 hours to get to Santa Cruz, and this train used to be called the "death train" years ago because it was so dangerous, but apparently that is not the case anymore. So I have to leave my beloved Brazil and learn to speak Spanish again!

(Sorry for the long post. More from Bolivia.)