Known as the "Serengeti of South America," the Pantanal is a patchwork of low-lying forests and marshes and dry, upland savannas. It is home to jaguars, giant anteaters, marsh deer and giant otters. In the rainy season rivers and streams overflow their banks and flood 80 percent of the Pantanal, covering an area more than ten times the size of the Florida Everglades. Lagoons swell with water lilies, while cattail sprout from marshes and palm trees grow along rivers. A variety of grasses feed wildlife and cattle, which have been raised in the region for more than 200 years. Some North American migratory birds including the Upland Sandpiper, American Golden Plover and Black-necked Stilt also rely on the Pantanal for seasonal respite.
Snuggled up against the Bolivian and Paraguayan borders, the west-central Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul encompass most of the Pantanal’s 138 square kilometers. The two states increased their combined human population by more than 50% between 1980-1991, from 2.5 million to 3.8 million. Cuiabá, the Mato Grosso capital, nearly doubled in size during that period to over 400,000. As late as 1960, just 57,000 souls called the city home.
More people mean more sewage, intensified agriculture, more cattle, and indiscriminate commercial fishing. Those phenomena bring water pollution from human waste and pesticides, soil erosion that clogs rivers, and depleted fisheries. And that means trouble for everybody: jaguars, those already endangered anteaters, fish like the pintado (a Brazilian freshwater delicacy) and innumerable plant species.
Still, the Pantanal remains Brazil’s mecca for wildlife spotting and fishing. The best time to visit? For wildlife spotting, the May-September dry season. For fishing, the period between June-October.
Next door in Goiás, the state government has been investing to expand and improve airports that serve important tourist destinations. Attractions include: Caldas Novas, one of the world's most important hot springs; Chapada dos Veadeiros, with its natural beauty and abundance of quartz (making it thus an attraction for adepts of esotericism from the world over); and historical cities like Perenopolis and Goiás.
Surrounded by Goiás state is the federal district, the capital city of Brasília. Built literally in the middle of nowhere, the city is a monument to megalomania and misdirected social engineering. “One’s overall feeling – confirmed by every Brazilian I met – is of immense empty spaces in which the individual feels lost, as alone as a man on the moon,” wrote social critic Marshall Berman in his book “All That is Solid Melts into Air.” Yet architecture buffs will surely want to see the icons of modernism that mark its landscape.
Central and Pantanal Travel Links
Here you’ll find links to some official and selected privately-run travel websites that we hope will be helpful. Whenever possible, we have tried to link to English-language pages. Many of the sites, however, are in Portuguese only.
Goiás
State Tourism Agency
Chapadão do Céu
Formosa
Goiânia
Lagoa Santa
Pirenópolis
Rio Araguaia
Mato Grosso
Cáceres
Chapada dos Guimarães
Mato Grosso do Sul
Official State Website
Bonito Municipal Tourism Council
Bonito: Portal Bonito
Corumbá
Miranda
