All creatures great and small . . . .

There's nothing like being dropped off in the middle of the Pantanal to feel like you're not the top of the food chain anymore. Not that there were any roving bands of big cats roaming around ready to take you off into the jungle, quite the opposite, it was the small critters that we were afraid of. And coming home after a day in the the wild was not the end of it. Sure we handled small mammals, wild pigs and bats but when you're in the middle of the largest wetlands in the world, there's no such thing as a no-go zone for nature.

We had the big flightless rea drop by every now and then, hanging out just outside the fence. We'd also have some of foxes try and raid the kitchen during dinner time and at breakfast the tucan, hyacynth macaws and other beautiful birds would come and feed off the scraps left by the cooks.

The more exciting visitors we had in the Fazenda were usually announced by a shrill shriek or someone running into the living room to ask for a little help extracting a visitor from their room. This was usually a snake or a tarantula. I never got one in my room but I couldn't sleep quite as comfortably after seeing it in someone else's room. I also checked my boots quite vigorously ( ie shaking them clear) before putting them on in the morning just in case someone decided to bed down there for the night and if my blanket accidentally fell off my bed in the middle of the night, let's just say I was cold until the morning.

Not all animals were as dangerous. I handled one small snake but only after the researchers had handled it themselves. Also I remembered a saying "Red on yellow, you're a dead fellow, red on black, a friend of Jack". Not too sure who Jack is but if you look closely this snake was definitely a friend of his. Some animals were downright dainty. Frogs, that sought refuge in our relatively cool bathrooms, could be handled but only if you didn't have bug repellent spray on your hands, otherwise they would die and as the poster in our huts said, even the smallest frog had a place in the ecosystem.