Clever parents.....

Flew from Rio to Brasilia then to Cuiaba ahead of a long bumpy drive across the Transpanateria to find our new home for the next five days.  Checking in at Rio, Jules and I were wondering about these internal South American flights as we'd never heard of the airline before. Just then the chap behind the desk pushes a piece of paper and a pencil across the counter, and asked, in a thick Portuguese accent: "Heymergency nahmbers pliss".  Very reassuring.

I was thinking that you get better at spotting animals once you've been doing this animal-spotting malarky for a while.  In the minibus, our guide, Alison - it seems to be a man's name out here - was giving us some explanations on what we can expect to see.  The boys were particularly excited at the prospect of caimen, giant otters and crab-eating foxes. Jules spotted some flashing lights over to the right, and explained knowledgeably to the boys that the lightning bugs out here are much bigger than in REGUA, our previous home.  (Lightning bugs are amazing little creatures whose rear ends literally light up brightly while they fly around, they seem to flash for differing lengths of time, its how they communicate. Something to do with enzymes.) We looked across, prepared to be amazed by these giant bugs.  "Mummy, those are cars." Oops.

Towards the end of the journey after we'd had a good look at a caimen in the road, some raccoons, and some capybara (sadly the boys were asleep by the time all this had happened!) I noticed some fresh droppings on the road ahead.  They looked quite large, which was a hopeful sign.  "Aha", I remarked, "...maybe that could be the droppings from .....a JAGUAR??" 

"No. Eeeets just a cow." Get back in your box Phil.