Kittykat: we'll be in Porto Jofre on the 28th (&29 & 30th) at Ocelotnatur. Hope to see you around - maybe a long shot- you never know.
I'll pm you with contact details.
Andre:
Any and every piece of information gratefully received. Are you going to do a report?
Your itinerary and what you saw where would be great to hear about. Did you use guides or not? Did you do Jaguar trips by boat - and did you find any cheap (or not very expensive) ones if so?
Was the travel easy enough? Any problems?
As I say: anything is of use and invaluable. Cheers.
H
Working on a report, but that may take a while. We had a local guide all along. First we stayed in Pousada Vento Sul in Chapada dos Guimarães (will you go there?) and birded around the town (Vale do Jamaca, Vale do Bencao, Estrada Agua Fria and Estrada da Geladeira. The place was full of birds and if you're interested I can pm you the exact location where we found Collared Crescentchest. (and the location for a vagrant Coscoroba Swan...).
We then moved to the Pantanal, staying at Pousada Piuval, Porto Jofre and Mato Grosso (at the Pixaim River bridge). We made a Jaguar tour organised by the Porto Jofre Hotel, expensive yes, but sucessful, after we had our cat at 7.15 we continued birding....
At the Mato Grosso you can hire boats (one of the boatmen knows the birds). If you can arrange one early in the morning, Agami Heron and Sungrebe (and all 5 Kingfishers) are well possible. He also knows the place for a Great Potoo.
The road was easy (a 4WD is required), some of the bridges are in bad shape but with some careful driving you should be fine. Fill up for petrol in Poconé, no cheap petrol after that....
You should be able to bird around Pousada Piuval on your own (if you stay there), most other places are privat and not accessible without guide, that could be a wee problem. However, many birds are seen from the road (which was very dusty lately). Some accomodation (like Mato Grosso) have access to some Fazendas, you might have to talk with them.
Language is not easy, English is not spoken by many people (usually just one or two people at the reception....) and some words of Portuguese really help.
André