Brazil - South America's 'Big Five'!

Naturetrek has a great tradition of pioneering ground-breaking wildlife tours featuring some of the most sought-after mammals on the planet. Building on the success of our ‘Brazil — Just Jaguars!’ tour, this unique itinerary is a quest for South America’s ‘Big Five’. Brazilian Tapir, Giant Anteater, Maned Wolf, Giant River Otter and, of course, the Jaguar. This special itinerary includes two of Brazil’s most stunning wilderness areas: the world-renowned wetlands of the Pantanal and the dry tropical forests of the little-known Parnaíba Headwaters National Park.  

Our tour begins with an international flight to Sao Paulo, from where we take a domestic flight to the city of Cuiaba, the gateway to the world famous Pantanal, the greatest wetland on the planet. Consolidating the experiences of our previous Pantanal holidays, and many years of running our highly successful ‘Brazil — Just Jaguars!’ tours, we will spend seven nights exploring this biodiversity hotspot. Our first three nights in the Pantanal will be spent in a rustic lodge in an exceptional area for wildlife where we have our best chance of encountering the continent’s largest land mammal, the Brazilian Tapir. Shy and elusive by day, under the cover of darkness Brazilian Tapirs emerge from the depths of the forest to undertake their nightly routine. With luck, we have an excellent chance of encountering a Tapir on a night drive, possibly wallowing in the mud of a roadside pool or feasting on the fruiting trees around the lodge. With a mosaic of habitats to explore, we can expect to see an enormous array of birds and mammals. However, it is the open grasslands that hold most promise, for this is the realm of the Giant Anteater. Measuring up to 250cm from snout to tail, this most iconic of South American mammals conjures up both feelings of awe and amusement in equal measure.  

Next, we drive south through the Pantanal in our custom-built safari vehicle and, on reaching the end of the Transpantaneira Road, we take to the water and cruise upriver into the heart of the ‘Jaguar Zone’ where we stay for three nights on the Jaguar Flotel, a floating hotel located on the Piquiri River. There can be no question that the flotel is in the best location in the world for viewing the Pantanal’s top predators, the Giant River Otter and the magnificent Jaguar. With two full days to explore the seemingly endless network of river channels, our targets are clear, and we will optimise our search times, venturing out first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon in small radio-equipped search boats. Giant River Otters are fierce predators and highly mobile, frequently hunting in family groups of up to eight individuals. Highly sociable by nature, they are the most vocal of the otter species which makes our task of finding them a little easier. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for South America’s largest cat, the Jaguar. Largely solitary, Jaguars are opportunistic and voracious predators, preying on anything from Caimans to Capybara. Though primarily forest animals, they have a fondness for resting up on river banks, where they seek relief from the heat of the day and scan for potential prey. The Pantanal subspecies is the largest and heaviest of the Jaguars and, with its stunning rosette-marked coat, this supreme predator will be at the top of our wish list. After three nights on the flotel and, with luck, sightings to last a lifetime, we retrace our steps along the Transpantaneira back to the intimate SouthWild Pantanal Lodge where we will spend our final night of this leg of the holiday. This superb lodge now offers the opportunity to watch the normally elusive Ocelot from an intimate hide and a clearing often reveals Tapir too!

The time will come to leave the Pantanal behind us and we now travel back along the Transpantaneira to catch a flight from Cuiaba to Belo Horizonte. We will spend a night near the airport and following an early morning flight to Barreiras de Bahia, a 4-hour drive takes us to the 1.7 million-acre Parnaíba Headwaters National Park. Driving through a landscape of sweeping grasslands, untouched forest and imposing red sandstone cliffs, we will make some stops along the way before arriving at the rustic Wolf Cliffs Camp, on the edge of the national park, our base for the next two nights. The endangered Maned Wolf is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful canids in the world and, standing over 3 feet at the shoulder, it is also the tallest. After years of continued protection by our hosts, several pairs of Maned Wolves have become habituated to humans and now present us with a superb opportunity to view them in their natural habitat as they pass close to the camp in the early mornings and late afternoons in search of wild fruits, birds and rodents. Whilst the Wolves will be the principal target during our time in and around this amazing national park, we will also spend two days at the Wolf Valley Camp, which is regarded as one of the best places in the world to photograph the world’s largest parrot, the Hyacinth Macaw. With time to explore the surrounding valleys, and with a little luck, we also hope to encounter one of the unique troupes of ‘Nutcracker Monkeys’ (Bearded Capuchin Monkeys) and witness their extraordinary habit of using igneous rocks to crack open palm nuts. After four nights at the Wolf Camps, exploring this outstanding park and the surrounding areas, we will make our way back to the airport and on to Sao Paulo for our overnight flight home.