As we travelled through western Brazil, we saw this development with our own eyes. We travelled on the BR-163, a highway that connects the entire west and is also known as the “Soya Highway”. We saw plenty of soya. For more than 500 kilometres, the road was lined with fields to the right and left, with posters advertising pesticides of large, well-known companies and the silos of global players such as the Chinese company COFCO INTL. The economic lifeline of the region is 3,500 kilometres long. The road creates jobs in the agricultural sector, but it’s extremely boring and dangerous to drive.

The BR-163 is narrow. It has only two lanes, and it’s full of lorries on their way to the nearest river port in Itautuba. This is where the goods are shipped down the Amazon to the rest of the world. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (an MIT data visualisation site), in 2021 Brazil exported soybeans worth USD 39 billion, mainly for animal feed, to China (USD 27.2 billion), Spain, Thailand, the Netherlands and Turkey (about USD 1.6 to 1 billion each).

Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of soya beans, and the state of Mato Grosso, with an area of 900,000 square kilometres, produces 26% of them. According to the latest MapBiomas report (2023), almost 50% of the original Amazonian transition zone has been deforested over the years. Situated between the Amazon and the Pantanal, Mato Grosso has its own ecosystem: the Cerrado tropical savannah. It plays an important role in Brazil’s water supply, storing water and feeding many rivers. But, the forest is being cleared for agriculture, and the nutrient-poor soil has to be heavily fertilised. Not exactly the ideal way to go to preserve an ecosystem.

Cattle farming for a change

The soybean is mainly used as animal feed. This is the second picture you see in the region. Huge cleared fields with white cattle. Only the 50 metre high Brazil nut trees are still standing, as they’re protected and can’t be felled. The roads are lined with double-decker cattle trucks. The animals are packed tightly together on their way to the slaughterhouse. The JBS company dominates the scene. They export meat all over the world, much of it to China, but they’re also the leading exporter of halal meat to the Middle East. The Iranian flag even flies outside one of their huge production facilities.

Hope for sustainable development

Cattle farming brings the same problems to the region as soya farming: Deforestation. Many people told us that 40 years ago the whole area was forested. Today you can hardly see any original forest. But it still exists.

Anteaters can grow up to 2 metres (with tail) and weigh up to 40 kg. This one wasn’t exactly small either. But it was just walking peacefully back and forth in search of ants and thermites, of which it eats up to 35 000 a day.

We were very lucky, Tamandua Bandeira (as they are called in Brazil) are solitary animals and occupy a territory of several square kilometres. We only saw two, one on the first day in the Pantanal and one on the penultimate day.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see the small anteater or tamandua alive for a long time. It was often run over in the ditch. But in Bolivia we were lucky at 4 o’clock in the morning. We were able to watch it for a moment high up on the tree.

Jaguar

Something crossed the road well ahead of us. We realised too late that it could have been a jaguar, but in the end the tracks in the sand confirmed it. Well, we’ve still got a few weeks left in the Pantanal, we thought, we’re bound to see one.

Well, it wasn’t that easy. We had no luck on the river trip from Corumbá to Porto Jofre, and on our first jaguar tour we had to guess them from their hiding place. The Pantanal is known for its high density of jaguars, and it’s by far the easiest place to spot them. So, we still managed to run into one.

We wanted to stop briefly at the Pixaim River and then decide where to spend the night. As we got out of the car, Cora saw something and quickly grabbed the binoculars. But it was just another pile of leaves, she thought, and Michi laughed at her. But far from it, another look and there she was, watching us from the other side. The fur pattern makes it almost impossible to see the jaguars under the bushes. They hide incredibly well. But when you do see them, you can identify them by their pattern, because like a person’s fingerprint, every fur pattern is unique.

But having heard so much from other travellers who had spent hours watching a jaguar, we decided to give it another try. We drove back along the Transpantaneira and knocked on Yuca’s door again. Yuca is a fisherman and he put his son and boat at our disposal to watch the jaguars.

Also let’s try again.

We set off at 7am and see nothing until 11am. But then, back downstream, he was sitting high up on the riverbank. Bororo. A big male jaguar. Totally unimpressed by us, he looked around, changed position and slept on. At some point a couple of monkeys came along, they were way more interesting. But he finished his siesta first. What else would you do with 35°C in the shade!

Then he got hungry and set off on a stalk. Jaguars mainly hunt deer, armadillos, monkeys and sloths, but they also like to hunt caimans in the Pantanal. They are not afraid of water, so we accompanied him downstream on his hunt. Again and again he would swim across the river and look carefully at what might be in the water so that he could sneak up as quietly as possible. But we had no luck and the caimans always fled first. Somehow they must have sensed the jaguar because suddenly there were almost no caimans and they hadn’t been disturbed by the boat before.

Normally jaguars have huge territories. But in the Pantanal there is so much prey and such a high density of jaguars that they live much closer together. A great place to watch them. And after three hours with Bororo, we head home and met a mother with two youngsters and two other males swimming. An unforgettable day for us!

Tapir

The tapir, or Anta in South America, is the largest herbivore in the neotropical rainforests. These animals exist since 14 million years and they were once very diverse. Today there are only five living species left. Four species live in Central and South America and the fifth in Southeast Asia. Tapirs are nocturnal and live near water. But, in our case, we were able to observe the tapir in the Pantanal twice during the day. Once very briefly during a hike. It stood right in front of us in the middle of the trail. All three of us stood still for a few seconds, then the tapir decided that we were dangerous after all and fled into the woods. Lucky for us, because tapirs can defend themselves quite well with their large teeth.

A few days later, in the late afternoon, we saw another, much larger tapir looking for food. He walked calmly through the bushes until he sat down in a pond to rest. We just stood on the road and watched him.

Tapirs are an important ecological factor in tropical forests as they spread seeds everywhere with their faeces. Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of these animals because they are prey for wild cats and caimans, but humans also hunt them and they destroy their habitat.

Giant otter

We saw the first giant otter on the Miranda River in Mato Grosso do Sul. Funnily enough, everyone was curious. This rather shy animal came right up to the boat and eyed us very closely. Measuring up to two metres in length and weighing over 20 kilograms, it is the largest freshwater otter.

But in the same area as the giant otter, the ararinha in Brazil, lives the smaller South American otter, the lontra. So we definitely saw both, but we’re not sure when we saw which, as the guides always talked a bit about both.

We kept seeing pairs playing or hunting together, and we even saw a pair of otters feeding. They bite the whole head off the fish, and together with their cloudy eyes and sharp little teeth, they don’t seem quite so cute. But they’re definitely a highlight.

Capybara

Capybaras sometimes seem fearless. We have seen them swimming through ponds full of caimans. These individuals had probably grown so big that the caimans no longer posed a real threat, because the capybaras are for sure on the caiman’s menu.

This is it for the mammals. We also saw deer and foxes and there are also many other wild cats. But to list all the animals would go beyond the scope of this post. So here are our highlights. Perhaps more at another time.