This morning we departed from the Hotel Antonio's Palace Hotel in Piracicaba and went to the Viracopos Airport for a flight to Cuiaba Airport. At the Viracopos airport we said our goodbyes to Felipe and Brenda, as they were returning to Sao Paulo.  However, we will see both Brenda and Felipe during our last adventure in Rio de Janeiro.  The security in the airport was surprisingly very simple:  we didn't have to take off our shoes, our jewelry, or take out our laptops.  However, we were stopped for trying to bring our camera equipment as carryon luggage, so we had to go check in our tripods. 

Once we were finally through security, we boarded our plane on Azul Airlines, which is a Brazilian flight company. This was a unique experience because we had to walk outside to board the plane instead of boarding through the standard departure gate. Our flight took off at 10:52am and lasted two hours. We arrived at Cuiaba Airport around noon and retrieved our luggage from the baggage claim. Cuiaba Airport was a smaller airport and wasn't very busy. We met Ricardo and his son, Rafael, when we were leaving the airport. We then met our bus driver and loaded our luggage onto a double-decker bus. The luggage went on the bottom and we had a bird's eye view of our drive to Pantanal. Around 12:30pm our group had lunch with Ricardo and Rafael at Sinuelo restaurant. We enjoyed steak and cheese sandwiches and salads outside under a large canopy. Ricardo explained that today was one of about three days during the year that wasn't very hot in Cuiaba. Sinuelo had a lovely souvenir shop that had just about everything including soccer balls, stuffed sheep, wine, and mini bottles of Cachaca. After lunch, we departed on a two hour journey to the SESC Pantanal Hotel.

Our bus ride was very scenic and different from the landscape of Sao Paulo. We drove through pastures, small towns, and over rivers on very narrow bridges.  During this drive, we were able to see cattle on both sides of the road, and there was even one point where the cattle walked alongside the road.  Furthermore, we were able to see different species of birds, which we would not have been able to find in the United States.  After our very adventurous bus ride, we finally arrived at our resort hotel.

We were greeted at the resort by Alex and he explained to us in detail about the amenities of the all-inclusive resort and the surrounding land. The first glance at the grounds of the resort offered us a beautiful environment to stay at for the weekend. The resort includes a pool, gym, fitness classes, and a brand new spa and wellness facility for group activities. The hotel had multiple living quarters that each have 24 rooms. The quarters were connected by pathways covered by wooden cabanas. Alex was very excited to have us because the resort hasn't had Americans stay in over 5 years. Also, it gave Alex the opportunity to brush up and practice his English. Alex then explained the options that we had during our two-day visit, which include group boat tours in the Pantanal wetlands.  Unfortunately, we found out we were unable to go on our sunrise tour due to the fact that it was too cloudy.  However, we were able to go on the night tour.  About a quarter of the group went on the night tour, which was so much fun!  During the night tour, we saw many alligators of all sizes, birds of various species, and flying fish.  We were lucky enough to witness many alligators in their prime hunting time.  For example, we saw one alligator trapping fish by sitting very still with his mouth open.  He waited until the fish swam into his mouth so he could eat it.

We also saw many different types of birds during the night including one who dived straight into the water for fish. This specific bird is able to stay underwater for as long as 5 minutes at a time, and once it is done hunting, it comes back to the tree to dry off before he can fly. Finally, and most importantly, we saw flying fish. They hopped out of the water in groups throughout the rivers. It was clear that our tour guide wanted us to experience the flying fish first hand because he would purposely drive in the direction of their jumps.  Three different fish jumped into our boat and flopped around until someone caught them and threw them back in the water. As you can probably guess, there was lots of screaming during those times. Overall, we would say we had a nice relaxing day after a long week of company visits. 

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