Day 2 - We arrived in the Pantanal!

Now I know why we need boots!
This morning we drove about 1 ½ hours out of Campo Grande to a dirt runway. We loaded our bags onto two small planes and took off to our final destination in the Pantanal. I had a front row seat next to the pilot in our plane. (Did that make me the co-pilot???) Looking down several hundred feet, we could see cowboys herding sheep and the brown river snaking its way through the country. The flooding river turned many fields into swamps and we flew over one pool of water after another.
After making a landing in the fields at Fazenda Rio Negro, we made our way to the buildings of the farm that we will call home for the next week. As soon as we stepped off the plane, we were greeted by wildlife everywhere. There are hundreds of types of birds, the largest being the emus and vultures circling overhead. We had some time before and after lunch to take pictures. I almost captured my first caiman sighting, but he dove underwater before I snapped the picture!
This afternoon we finally went out on the river. The views from the water were beautiful, but it was even better getting off the boat and walking through the jungle. We had to cut away vines to get our boat through a few small passages. We were on a mission to check traps. (Ellen Wong, one of the researchers we are working with, puts out the traps to catch frogs, lizards and snakes). She was successful! We found several frogs and an unidentified snake. I’ve been assigned to a team to work with the traps again tomorrow.As we pulled up to the river bank back at the farm, we were greeted by 10 sets of Caiman peering up at us from the water. We were also called over to one of the farm buildings because a farm employee found a snake in his room. Who knows what we will see tomorrow!