My wife and I (Australian) did the 6 day Jaguar tour in August 2014.
Overall the tour was very well organized and they did what they said they would do in their brochure about the tour. We were picked up from our hotel in Cuiaba at the arranged time and our guide was always ready before the allocated departure time for each day’s activities. We always felt safe and were well looked after. The food provided was basic but tasty and there was always plenty of it. Bottled water was provided on the houseboat but must be purchased when staying at the Pousada Rio Claro. The sleeping accommodation on the houseboat was very basic and small, but the dining room was adequate for the purpose. Mosquitos can be a little annoying so bug spray is essential. The sleeping accommodation at the Pousada Rio Claro was superior to the houseboat and the dining room is much larger and enclosed with fly wire to keep the mosquitos at bay.
The staff was all very friendly and helpful however most don’t speak English. Our guide, was very professional and very knowledgeable and spoke English. Our guide has a special interest in birds and was a wealth of knowledge on species identification and the behaviour of individual species.
There was a long drive (250 km) from Cuiaba along the Transpantaneira Road to Porto Jofre on the river’s edge before you are transferred to the houseboat in a small boat. You see a bit of Cuiaba, farming land and then various aspects of the Pantanals along the way. A good portion of this road was gravel (150 km), so the ride was a little bumpy. We stopped a couple of times to observe the wildlife. While on the houseboat we did a morning and afternoon tour in an aluminum boat with our guide and a boat driver. There were multiple small boats on the river all looking for jaguars, so when one was found, news was quickly communicated via UHF radio to other boats so everyone benefits from an observation.
The last two days of our tour were at the Pousada Rio Claro. It was a morning’s boat trip and vehicle ride to get there. There was an afternoon walk through a woodland, a night safari for animals after dinner in the back of a vehicle (your seated and it is safe) and a boat trip on the river the next morning before lunch, before returning to Cuiaba by car.
Will you see a jaguar? Well that cannot be guaranteed because you are observing nature, but we were lucky enough to see 11 during the 4 days that we were on the houseboat. I gather this was far more than is normally seen during this period. In addition, we saw about 80 species of birds, including two species of macaw and two species of toucan. We also saw about 10 species of small mammals, including the two species of otter, two species of monkeys, Giant Anteater, Agouti, Red-Brocket Deer, foxes and many Capybaras and iguanas.
If you own or can afford a good zoom lens for you camera, then you will get much better photos of the wildlife. Tourists in small boats always stay away from the riverbank to minimise impacting on jaguars and other animals, so you are almost always 20-50m from animals of interest.
Overall, a very enjoyable tour and we saw lots of great wildlife. We would recommend this tour to others looking for an enjoyable holiday to observe the vast array of fauna in the Pantanal.
