Completed the border formalities in Puerto Suarez, we say goodbye to the beloved Bolivia and we jump into the new adventure, this time called Brazil. Corumbá is a colorful village on the banks of the Rio Paraguay, gateway to the Pantanal. In the air there is a radical and electrifying change: music, colors, life… everything happens in the street. Brazilian movida.
The Pantanal is a region of unspoilt, wild nature (who knows until when), where the bright green vegetation contrasts with the red of the scorched earth. Numerous animals roam undisturbed in the infinite maze of canals and ponds that make up this giant floodplain, the largest in the world. Capybaras, deers, jaguars (onça pintada), anacondas, alligators (jacaré), numerous species of birds (parrots, ara). We drive along the transpantaneira, a road that crosses the Pantanal, opening the way over the ponds with rickety bridges. The road leads to the many ranches installed in the Pantanal by gauchos pantaneiros, hard life and little satisfaction, often at the expense of the indigenous inhabitants of the region, forced to move away. For lunch they offer us piranha soup and morsels of jacaré.