Images from the Pantanal of Brazil

A 11-day private photo tour led by Edison Buenano to the Pantanal started from Cuiaba after flying into Sao Paola, Brazil and taking a regional flight to Cuiaba, population ~700,000. The main attraction to the Pantanal, from a wildlife perspective, is the likelihood of viewing and photographing jaguars in their native environment. However, there a wide variety of other wildlife that can be seen; including giant otters, ocelots, giant anteaters and many birds. The jaguars are primarily located amongst the rivers and estuaries of the wetlands and seem not to view humans in skiffs as prey. Many lodges and houseboats cater to the tourist trade and the primary starting point for most trips starts from Porto Jofre. While it is possible to fly into Porto Jofre on small charter flights, most visiters drive the 252km (156mi) from Cuiaba on a paved road that later turns into the dusty, Transpantaneira dirt road. Instead of driving 4-5 hrs directly from Cuiaba to Jofre, we spent 2 days midway at the Piuval lodge for wildlife and bird photos. The next stop was at the Santa Theresa lodge for an ocelot viewing and followed by 3 days on the Rio Cuiba river for jaguar viewing. The last stop was the Pouso Alegre lodge for more bird and wildlife shooting.

Note: Click on a pic to reveal the full-sized image.


Intro: the Pantanal is the largest freshwater wetland in the world but also includes dry savana regions. Usually, the Pantanal is seasonally flooded by Paraguay River tributaries and is over 20x the size of the Everglades. However, this year the river was lower than usual. The risk of fire is also a concern due to a devasting 2024 fire in the region. At the Piuval lodge, the local river was bone dry so a scheduled boat ride on the Pixaim river was canceled. At the Pouso Alegre lodge, many basins were dry but there were enough ponds to see and photograph birds.

Montage 1: top-left: sign to the Transpantaneira road when it turns to dirt, top-right: many wooden bridges crossed estuaries, bottom-left: private residence at the public Porto Jofre 'docking' area; bottom-right: the public docking area is simply a cleared dirt 'beach', iPhone pics


Montage 2: top-left: private residence at the port with StarLink antenna, top-right: Large truck about to unload supplies onto a skiff to re-supply some houseboat, bottom-left: a web-derived picture of a private dock for skiffs run by the Hotel Porto Jofre, bottom-right: the hotel skiffs generally had much more powerful outboard motors iPhone (top row) and internet-derived pics


Montage 3: top-left: Web-derived aerial image of Hotel Porto Jofre. Next to the road is a dirt airstrip for private charters, top-right: Web-derived aerial view of the Pantanal wetlands, bottom-left: a web-derived picture of a river houseboat-hotel similar to the one we stayed. However, ours was older and while the food was good, maintenance could be improved, bottom-right: A old, wrecked houseboat-hotel about half-mile from Porto Jofre Internet-derived pics except for the iPhone pic, lower right


Sunrise & sunset pics

Saturated sunrise colors, ICLE1-M2, ISO 6400, 1/500, F4.5, 124mm


Sunrise with puffy clouds, iPhone pic: ISO40, 1/210, F2.2, 2.2mm (13mm equivalent in full-frame)


As the sun rises, a faster skiff races ahead in front of our skiff, iPhone pic: ISO40, 1/210, F2.2, 2.2mm


Sunset in the savanna region outside the Piuval lodge, iPhone pic: ISO40, 1/210, F2.2, 2.2mm



Links to the animal and bird images: