Snorkelling in the world's 3rd clearest waterOct 23, 2009
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| We have today had an interesting excursion to do some snorkeling. Strangely enough we’re not by the coast or the ocean. We’re right in the middle of central Brazil. As usual we got up around half past seven in the morning and had breakfast. The hostel served the same breakfast as yesterday and we liked it. The coffee is very nice here in Brazil. After breakfast the reception confirmed that our tour to Rio Sucuri was on and that the bus there would depart at ten sharp. This gave us about one hour and a half before we were due to leave. We spent that time working on our backlog of blogs and managed to finish a few ones off. We also managed to upload some photos on Facebook and the blog. These little tasks take time but it’s very nice once they are done. Before our trip we also discussed where to go next. We descoped an excursion to a lodge in the Pantanal yesterday due to there being too many reptiles there - probably a good decision as I would not have enjoyed walking around there being surrounded by crocodiles and anacondas. We had previously discussed going to Rio de Janeiro - both of us looked forward to possibly going. We talked to the staff in the hostel about how to get there and they told us that the bus would take around 24 hours. It was also quite expensive - about 100 GBP for this nightmarish trip. Since Rio isn’t really on the way to Argentina (where we want to go), it’s far and expensive we quickly decided not to go to Rio. The city is also quite easy to reach from Europe so we can always go some other time… Instead we have now decided to head straight to the Iguazu falls and we have booked a coach for tomorrow. It will depart at 14.30 from Bonito and it will take 16 hours (or so). It’s also a long bus ride, but it’s in the right direction! At 9.45 the bus left for Rio Sucuri and we got to the hacienda close to an hour later. En route to the farm we managed to see some wildlife - most notably some wild ostrich. They don‘t look particularly beautiful. By some weird twist of fate we managed to get the same guide as yesterday - the fat Paraguayan. He is a nice guy but his English and Spanish is so limited that we would have preferred someone else. Rio Sucuri offers some very nice snorkeling facilities and have allegedly the third most clear water in the world. The tour let us snorkel and float along the river and enjoy seeing the wildlife and fishes living in this river. The water was indeed amazing clear and there was no problem whatsoever with visibility. As we got there we were equipped with a wetsuit, special shoes for diving, a life vest to keep up floating, snorkel and goggles. After some instructions (in Portuguese) we were allowed to jump into the river and float downstream. The whole “ride” took close to one hour and it was really enjoyable. We managed to see a fair amount of fishes - they were reasonably colorful and quite big. The biggest ones were probably in the region of 50 centimeters and there were plenty of them. The fishes were probably not as nice as the ones you see in the ocean but they were pretty nice anyway! Iris really enjoyed the tour but was struggling somewhat with her snorkel -water seemed to leak in. I think that she had set it up that was so that she could eat fishes as she swam. She really likes her fish and her sashimi! We had also rented a special underwater camera for the trip. Hence, it was possible for us to take underwater pictures. This was pretty good fun and we really enjoyed it. It turned out to be pretty difficult to get really good pictures because the fish moved around a lot and it was difficult to focus. However, we managed to get a few nice pictures. The remaining 90 percent of pictures turned out to be fishes’ bums as they swam away. The fishes weren’t very posy but very photogenic once you managed to “catch” one. After the swim we had a late lunch at the hacienda. It was nearly as nice as yesterday. The presentation and selection yesterday was slightly better but the dishes today tasted nicer. We had loads of food as it was very nice - especially the chicken drumsticks. We’re also starting to understand why most Brazilians are very fat. There seems to be buffets everywhere. The buffets are huge and the Brazilians eat them with greedy appetite. Furthermore, Lonely Planet states that the main bargain in Brazil is buffets that you pay per kilo of food. These are apparently very common and popular. This must have caused most Brazilians to turn, in my opinion, fatter than most Americans. We only returned to the hostel around five in the afternoon and spent the remainder of the day with various domestic chores. We did a bit of laundry, read a bit about Iguazu and other bits and bobs. Marcus |
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