Jaguars of Pantanal 2021

Brazil

Your Adventure Awaits

Join us on this life changing trip. Join us in the beautiful Brazil where we will be visiting the jaguars of Pantanal. This location has the highest concentration of Jaguars of anywhere in the world.

This is one of my favorite safaris.

Your Pantanal Safari

Its fields and mountain ranges, bays, rivers and lakes cover an extremely flat area of 210,000 km2, fed by tributaries of the Paraguay River, which runs through the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, as well as Bolivia and Paraguay. The unique combination of location, gently sloping topography and seasonal rise and fall of the waters, characterised by intense rainfall in summer, gave rise to a lush, mega-diverse biome.

The imposing and magnificent scenery is the habitat of the largest concentration of wildlife in the Americas. It shelters over 400 species of birds, 400 species of fish and 80 species of mammals, many threatened with extinction. In 2000, the Pantanal wetland was designated a World Natural Heritage and World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.

On arrival you will be met by our local representative and proceed with land transfer of approximately 3 hours to the South Wild Lodge also known as Fazenda Santa Teresa. The journey along the transpantanal highway offers your first contact with the regional wildlife. There will be plenty of oppertunities to stop along the road and take your first shots of birds, caiman, and some landscapes, so make sure to have the basic camera gear set up and ready to go on arrival.

The South Wild Pantanal is a standard lowland pantanal property with simple rooms but confortable rooms. The property is strategically located by the Pixaim River a great pleace to see giant river otters.

Dinner will be served on arrival to the lodge and the evening is at leisure.

PhotographySpend two complete days enjoing the photographic oppertunities of this area of the Pantanal.

Enjoy a regional breakfast at the lodge. After breakfast we will take the morning to enjoy the wildlife activities in the area of the Pantanal. The morning is great opportunity to enjoy photography along the Pixaim river and get a chance to see some of the great river otters that also enjoy this stretch of the river.

Also we will get a chance to visit the Jabiru nest observation tower allows you to experience a family of Jabirus at their nest. This 12 meter platform is accessed by a user-friendly spiral staircase. The top of the tower is at the level of the nest, which is only 16 meters away.

The property offers a number of viewing towers strategically located at fruiting and flowering trees. The lodge also offer horse rides, and hike along scientifically-designed forest trails, great for viewing primates and monkeys of the Pantanal.

In the evening you will have the option of a night safari to spot some of the nactornal wildlife. The lodge also has a proper photographer hide to photograph ocelets which are active in the evening.

After breakfast, depart the South Wild Pantanal Lodge by road towards Porto Jofre along the transpantanal road. The transfer will take between 2-3 hours along 85 KM of the dirt road with dozens of bridges. This is a great stretch of the road also providing good sighting oppertunities.

On arrival to Porto Jofre, the end of the transpantanl road, board our jaguar-viewing skifs on the Rio São Lourenço and head thoward the meeting of the waters state park, the region also known as Jaguarland.

As you transfer to the boat make sure to have your gear ready with telefoto lenses, as this just might be when you catch the first shots of Jaguars. Both your guide and boat drivers are specialist in finding jaguars. Keep your eyes focused on the banks of the rivers as you meander through the meeting of the rivers state park where there is a concentration of over 60 wild jaguars that roam this area. We will spend some time on the river with your guide in search of Jaguars before reaching the Panoramico Boat.

The Panoramico boat – This newly built boat which has been inaugurated for this season. It has 12 Cabins, 18sq meters, each with private bath, air conditions…etc. The boat 45 m long, has a spacious game room/lecture room on top deck, a covered barbecue area and wet bar also on top deck and a sun deck with sun chairs on forward part of top deck, the second floor is a large, large dining room with a large wet bar and access into the kitchen through a large window to pass items.

On the second floor, there are 6 of the guest cabins and on the first floor are 6 more guest cabins. The boat can navigate to several different jaguar spots throughout the park, but will stay mostly stationary during this visit for comfort of dinning and sleeping at night. We boat is often stationed very close to where we find frequent jaguar sightings allowing our guests to see jaguars faster in the morning and get better shots without many other boats around.

Spend three full days focused on seeing some of the best wildlife in South America and particularly searching for the elusive Jaguar. The excursions take place in comfortable skiffs that meander along the meeting of the waters state park, where Tres Irmãos, Cuiabá and Piquirí rivers all converge.

At this time of year it is highly likely to get one or two jaguar sightings a day! Maybe more. These wild and untamed animals can be active and hunting in the morning and evenings, so keep an eye out for them along the river banks.

Return by sunset for cocktail on the sundeck of the Panoramico Boat. Dinner is served buffet style in the restaurant. Following dinner, the resident naturalist will provide a very insightful and brief lecture on Caimans, Jaguars and Ocelots, some of the key species that can be seen in the Pantanal.

Photography Workshop

We will be having Photography workshop time during the mid day hours just before or after lunch. We will be going over such topics as workflow, image processing, composition, and many other topics depending on the groups desires. Photography workshops will be on days when we can work it in to our schedule. If we decide to stay out all day we can discuss photographic techniques well we are on the boat. We can also discuss photography during our meals.