Pantanal and Caracas - Day 9 25/7 - Flotel and back to Hotel Matize

Thursday

We were up for our 5.30 breakfast before setting off at 6.00 for our last river trip. We drove up to the  river confluence and took the right hand fork. We had a slow drive through a side tributary where our driver spotted a jaguar head,  he gently manoeverd the boat farther away so we could see over the bank  where there was just the head visible. Then a second one was spotted close by. The first beast got up and came closer to have a look, which gave better views before it turned round, stretched and walked away along the bank. As a gang of boats had turned up, we moved away and carried on birding the bank. We came back round the loop and saw that the boats had moved but there didn't seem to be any views of the jaguars . 

We drifted round more areas and then went for third jag. It was sitting in the middle of a marsh at the end of one of the no thru backwaters with its back to us most of the time. There were a lot of boats there and it was difficult to get a good view, our boatman manoeuvred us to the edge but although the views weren’t too bad we looked at ways to get better. Brenda tried to get on to the bank but slipped and slid into the waters edge. She sat on the boat and brought her legs round and was back in the boat, with wet, muddy feet. 

The jaguar moved off and we turned round and headed back along other waterways, birding in various spots with three more Southern Screamers, Little and Squirrel Cuckoo,  including a bush full of boat-billed herons. Soon it was time to go back for lunch and our ride back to hotel Matiz. We had an hour after lunch so we sat up on deck and scanned round before packing up the transport boat with our luggage which went off, then we got back in and made our way back to Porte Joffre, stopping off for Yellow Anaconda, which was very hard to see in the bushes close to the edge but pointed out by another boatman. We also saw Great Antshrike and Short-crested Flycatcher. 

We transfered to the van for drive the back to the hotel Matiz. A couple of stops where we managed to see Scarlet-headed Blackbird and Marsh Deer  and then we were back at the hotel. 

We checked in, went for dinner at 7.00 where we met up with a group form Norfolk, and also met Sidnea and chose dinner, then Xavier arrived with his family and we enjoyed Caprinos all round. We had a good chat before we went out for a quick walk round, hearing a Great Horned Owl which we eventually found by torchlight sitting up on the radio tower, joined by a second one, before we retired to bed.