Pantanal and Caracas - Day 6 22/7 - Pouso Alegre

 Day 6 - Transfer to Pousa Alegre.

We were booked into a 6.00 o’clock breakfast for 6.30 departure to Pousa Alegre. We were heading for the famous Trans Pantaneira Highway to Joffre. We had a nice drink stop in a typical roadside cafe which also had some touristy souvenirs, but nothing that caught my eye but we did managed to get some  postcards.

We stopped at the entrance to the Transpanteneira for the obligatory photos. There were various birds to look at including Scaled Pigeon and a young Guiras Cuckoo trying to get down some food. 

We drove along the Transpanternera, stopping at various vantage points and crossing some of the 122 bridges along the route. These wooden bridges are slowly being upgraded to concrete structures, whcih would lose some of the uniqueness of the road but will make travel in the rainy season much easier and make it much safer. We saw hundreds of Yacare hauled out and lurking in the water with a variety of Herons and Storks, this one was taking the weight off it's feet, Brazillian Teal, Capped Heron, Amazon Kingfisher and Kiskadee.

We had several stops at bridges along the Transpanteniera which gave a good perspective across the ditches and pools. We spent some time watching Long-billed Terns as well as Little Blue Heron, Rufescent Heron and Black-capped Heron among the Grest Whites.

We had a stop for  a pair of Southern Screamers that we saw and Snail Kites were everywhere, at every stop there would two or three on the fence pots or wires or in the trees.

We drove on to Pousa Alegre where we went straight to lunch. This was in a big barn building with a good choice of food and salads, you then sat large tables with drinks from the fridge, put on your tab. We took some time to settle in before driving round for tapir, with no luck. We did see the back end of an Anteater and there were lots of herons with the area along the roads all being water-filled pools and ditches. One of these had a feeding Sun Bittern which gave great views as it patrolled around the pool. There were also an amazing number of cayman. 

We went back for dinner in the same 'bunk house' and then walked back along the entrance track  to the first view point. shining the torch across the pools was amazing with herons and hundreds of pairs of caiman eyeshine. A cursary sweep with the torch found a frog in the trackway and we found an interesting spider before going back and retiring for the night.