Brazil - Bonito

 Landing in Campo Grande, we jumped into our hire car and took a 4hr scenic route to Bonito.  The road took as through some lush farmlands and subtropical forests.  We also got so have a bit of rain and a spectacular sunset with the big clouds. 

Bonito is a tourist destination, with a western feel (you can get cowboy hats all through town) to it, but seems to be aimed at more the local Brazilians rather than foreigners.  So it was very cool to get a more authentic feel to our experience.

Here we did 2 really fun things, out of the many available!  The first was an expedition into the “Cathedral caves”. These are a series of caves that were formed millions of years ago due to a volcanic eruption, which then filled with water.  Over time this water slowly flowed out leaving these caves behind.  Including some amazing stalactites, stalagmites,  petrified waterfalls (the texture is incredible) and even a petrified mushroom that was growing on the ceiling! We were not alone in the caves, as we got to share it with a whole colony of bats. It was fascinating to hear them chittering to one another in the dark caves.  Apparently there are also a whole variety of blind insects that live in those caves.

The second activity was a four hour snorkelling trip down the Rio de Prata.  It took us a little bit of effort to get into the wetsuits (the girls called it the war of the wetsuits), but none of it mattered once we got into the crystal clear waters of the river.  After getting comfortable with the mask and snorkel, we set off down the river. We let the current do most of the work for us, so that we could enjoy the underwater scenery.  And it was spectacular!

Not only did we see lots of fish, some big, some small, and some really tiny, but we also got to see some really cool “boiling sand”. It really looked like a sandpit that was boiling, but it was just an underground river exiting through a sand pit.  We came across a number of holes where ground water was coming out, which we quickly discovered was VERY cold. 

It has been a fantastic few days in Bonito, but the next part takes us into the Pantanal properly!