Saturday afternoon, March 16^th

On our morning outing we stopped by the working part of the ranch and visited the tackle house.  About forty individuals are employed in ranching operations as cowboys and other general hands. At the tackle house, Juarez demonstrated the technique for lassoing cattle.  Ben and I tried our hands at it as well.  I tried three times, successfully lassoing the stationery wooden calve on the third try.  I decided to quit while I was ahead.  We returned to the lodgings about 2 and had lunch.  At 4 we headed out again, this time on foot.  We went down a road and through a forest.  We learned that the clearings in the forest were slightly lower land and would normally be inundated during the wet season.  They are not flooded this year, another sign of the regional drought.  It is so strange to see so much water and be told we are experiencing a drought.  It is also strange to think of this region experiencing drought when just a one and one half hour flight from here they are experiencing record high waters at the Iguassu Falls.

Exiting the forest we came upon a modest size pond.  Although it was small we counted over 25 caimans strewn about it and in the water.  Dom took a long stick and stirred the water with it repeatedly.  He did this to illustrate for us that while the caimans have relatively poor eyesight, they have fairly effective sensors around their mouths that permit them to sense pressure changes that come with movement of the water.  Many of the caiman were attracted to the moving stick and approached it.  One almost struck it.  They are so well adapted to their environment that they can totally submerge in the dark water with only their eyes protruding out of the surface.  I am having a hard time processing this adaptation with the fact that they cannot see well.   Here is a photo one of them:

We walked a couple of hours returning to our lodgings about 6.  After a quick use of the facilities we mounted the observation truck and headed out looking for jaguars and ocelots.  We were out for two and one half hours but had no luck on the jaguars.  We did see a juvenile ocelot but it was too quick for any of us to get our cameras on it.  Returning to our lodgings at 8:30 pm we settled in for drinks and dinner.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

At seven the next morning we set out again.  We drove a few kilometers to a trailhead and set out on foot.  We found fresh jaguar prints and also fresh tapir prints.  We followed until the tapir tracks and the jaguar tracks diverged and continued following the jaguar tracks.  Alas we were unable find either animal.  We did see an anteater. 

 Here is a shot of Juarez, our indigenous guide who was a cowboy (gaucho) before he started guiding:

and a picture of the four of us in the bed of the observation truck.

We cut short our morning hike as we saw weather coming in.  Our plan was to leave about one PM and head onto first Belo Horizante and then Ouro Preto.  Due to the threatening weather and the fact that our King Air is parked on a grass runway we decided to move our departure up.  We headed back to our lodgings to shower, pick up a paced lunch and head out.  We took off about eleven AM and flew to Compo Grande about 30 minutes away to get fuel.  Dom had driven from Compo Grande to Caiman Lodge when checking out the itinerary and it took him a good four hours due to the condition of the roads.  We landed in Compo Grande about 11:35 for fuel.  Due to local blue laws we could not take of between noon and one so we took on the fuel and had our packed lunch in the terminal building.  At five minutes after one we were wheels up again.  We are on our way to Belo Horizante as I type this.  I hope to post it tonight when I acquire Internet service at our hotel in Ouro Preto.