Pantanal and Caracas - Day 7 23/7 - Port Joffre and Flotel.

Tuesday.

We were up earlyfor a 6am drive to a view point. The view was amazing  with huge numbers of herons and snail kites. 

Among the orther birds seen in the pools along the track as the light improved were *kingfisher, Waterhen, Water Tyrant anfd a rufous Snail Kite.

Back for breakfast, ham/cheese, eggs and tomato after which we walked along to the feeder station where we had great views of a pair of Hyacynth Macaws, Great rufous Woodcreeper and White-tipped dove.

We then trekked out through the grounds and forest for Great Potoo. We had great views of Pale-legged Hornero, scrubbing anout in the leaf litter. 

We had really amazing views of two Potoos roosting in different trees looking really pregistoric. The first one was in some tree branches and was difficult to get photos without branches in the way but the second one was much more out in the open and against a l;ively blue sky. 

On the way back we had a good view of **** hawk and aTegu wandered across the grass.

We drove to Porte Joffrey, with several new bridges either in use or in construction, stopping for Red Brocket Deer. We arrived at Porte Joffrey, drove round into the settlement and parked up. We then sat around waiting for the boat to transport us to the Flotel.  A boat arrived and loaded up our luggage and then took off  so we kept waiting. We were entertained by a young Caracara hopping about on a moored boat and kept an eye on the caiman loafing on the water's edge.  Our boat eventually came, we boarded and set off for the Flotel. 

 We boarded the Flotel and were shown our cabins, which were very plush - what we didnt know was e had been upgraded because of some issue, not revealed, and we would be downgraded tomorrow. we then went on our firt boat ride. The boats were quite shallow draft and flat decked with seats attached onto the deck so that you had a pretty good all round view , there wasnt much in the way of safety rails etc. though. We had a very pleasant ride round some of the streams and tributaries but had no luck with jaguars. We were roughly on our way back, enjoyoing the sunset over the river, when the driver took us into a narrow channel where we watched Nightjars swooping and feeding around us. He then decided to take a short cut and the boat was well and truly stuck. The driver and our guide rocked and then got out and pushed, but we seemed to be heading into shallower areas. Eventually we all took off our shoes and got out and the boat was turned into the deeper channel, before we all got back in and headed back in the dark. Quite exhilerating, really. It did mean we were last for dinner, which was another buffet style, with stew and vegetables and salad.