Although Brazil doesn’t exactly have a great track record for ecological preservation, there has been a concerted effort of late to preserve the wetlands. This means that most of the “pousadas” (inns), lodges and dude ranches in the Pantanal are eco-friendly. They’ll usually provide you with a list of “don’ts” – don’t feed the birds, don’t frighten the horses, don’t eat the daisies – designed to keep the ecosystem reasonably in balance.
Not that you’re camping out – the lodges are large, comfortable, usually wooden buildings with most of the modern amenities including television, CD players and, in some cases, swimming pools. Caiman Ecological Refuge, created in 1987, was the Pantanal’s first nod to ecotourism. Its 131,000 acres surround a 17,300-acre reserve and a cattle-breeding ranch run by “pantaneiros” or Pantanal cowboys (also a breed of cow and of horse in the Pantanal). Needless to say, you can walk forever without leaving the property; most of the treks, both on foot and on horseback, are of necessity guided – don’t want anyone picking off or, more likely, being picked off by, the indigenous wildlife. At night, you can take a truck ride through the preserve for a glimpse of some of the shyer, nocturnal animals.
The refuge has four lodges of between six and 11 rooms. The largest of the lodges, the Cordilheira, has its own observation tour as well as a swimming pool on the edge of a drying bog. The rooms are simply and comfortably furnished, and the staff is friendly, English speaking and, as you’d expect, extremely knowledgeable about the area.
Another good bet is the Pousada Mangabal, a six-room inn located on 20,000 acres of a working cattle ranch, where you’ll have a chance to chat with cowboys and ranch hands about the pantaneira lifestyle. It should be noted here that only tour guides consistently speak fluent English.
Because tourists mostly hail from other parts of Brazil and from elsewhere in South America, the tourism structure is not really set up to accommodate North Americans; it can be a struggle to communicate in English even in a major hotel in the gateway city to the Pantanal, Campo Grande. If you’re part of an English-speaking group, however, or, better yet, if you speak even a little Spanish, you should be able to understand and make yourself understood on a basic level.
You won’t have any trouble understanding the friendly smiles, though, or the international language of food. Even lifelong vegetarians may have trouble resisting the nighttime “churrasco” (barbecue) held at Mangabal, where pork, veal and the area’s primary source of revenue, beef are cooked slowly on a spit over a wood fire, then sliced off in all their crackling goodness to be eaten around the fire as pieces become ready. The informal meal is accompanied by rice and beans, salad and various other treats, and washed down with a tart caipirinha; with the local beer, Skol; or with the fruity, highly caffeinated Brazilian answer to Sprite, carbonated guaraná.
In fact, the food is outrageously delicious all over the Pantanal, where regional fruits like the aforementioned guaraná berries and flavorful spices make even standbys like rice and beans taste unexpected and new. Another small ecological reserve and working cattle ranch, Estância Mimosa, doesn’t offer rooms, but does provide a tour of the grounds, a leisurely boat ride along the Mimoso River and an enormous and delicious lunch spread, after which you’re free to kick back in the hammocks and watch ibis, herons, parrots and various other birds frolicking.
For now, grass-fed beef remains the life’s blood of the Pantanal. Still, should the cattle ever run out – arroz con capybara, anyone?
