Mr A and I always try to incorporate an element of wildlife viewing when we go on holiday.  So I decided to add on a few days at the end of our April 2022 trip to Brazil to go to the Pantanal region in Mato Grosso do Sul state, which is famous for its jaguars.  After searching the web I found Caiman Ecological Refuge, which appeared to offer all the elements of an African safari at a much lower price.  I was concerned about the word ‘refuge’ because that’s not the sort of place I tend to stay at, but Caiman is used by several highly rated British luxury safari companies, and their website looked pretty appealing.  From now on instead of ‘refuge’ I’ll use the word ‘lodge’, which is in line with African equivalents.  I made contact with their reservations team to check availability and received prompt and helpful replies in English, from a chap called Pedro.  He outlined the options of getting to Caiman, which is 300km from Campo Grande airport, and put me in touch with his recommended air charter company, because Caiman has its own grass airstrip.  Through Pedro, I booked to stay in their Master Suite for BRL4,500++/night (c£740) which is in their main lodge, called Casa Caiman. The main lodge has 18 suites plus they have a few villas close to the lodge for private group hire. The rates quoted are for full board, including soft drinks and twice-daily safaris.  Pedro was very relaxed about payment and said he’d send me a secure payment link a month before our planned stay.

We landed at Caiman’s airstrip and a safari vehicle and two guides were waiting for us, to take us to the main lodge for check-in formalities, on a sofa in one of their two spacious lounge areas.  They didn’t have a ‘reception’ desk, which is pleasantly informal, but a few times when I wanted to speak to a member of staff I didn’t know where to find someone.

When were were shown to our suite I was amazed and very impressed with its large size, attractive decor and its cleanliness. First we entered a spacious lounge area which was pretty yet quite simply furnished.  To one side off the lounge was a toilet, but the main feature was the opening to our private balcony which overlooked a lake, the lodge and its manicured lawns.

There were plug-in mosquito repellents in every room, which worked very well, because although we had problems with mosquitos on our safari drives, we never encountered one in our suite.  Surprisingly though, one evening we found a tree frog in the lounge.

Our bedroom was a good size and had a superking bed, a sofa and a bookshelf with a small collection of books about the area and a few indigenous-made figurines.

Off the bedroom was a large dressing room, with plenty of space for our clothes.  And off the dressing room was the main bathroom which had twin washbasins and also a double shower. Toiletries were locally sourced.

The bedroom and lounge had their own aircon units, which worked well. But there was no aircon in the bathroom, so we left a window open (with an insect screen) for ventilation.  We had reasonably good wifi in our suite, and throughout the property, but connectivity suffered the further we were from a router.

The whole lodge area was in immaculate condition, and offered two large indoor lounge areas, plus an outdoor lounge, and then a separate dining room, where we took all of our meals.  In one of the lounges was a service area were two friendly young ladies were on hand to make cocktails, coffees and light snacks.  It proved best (quickest) to order any wine we wanted for dinner from these ladies too.

Food at Caiman is generally of a high standard, and plentiful, but served from a buffet, which I usually try to avoid, for health reasons. Every night tender beef fillet was available, in various guises, along with a decent choice of other warm dishes, including some Brazilian ones.  An English speaking staff member was always on hand to explain what the various dishes were. And there was always a great choice of delicious fresh salads.

On one evening they set up a “cowboy barbecue” for everyone, in a ranchers’ station just a couple of hundred metres from the main lodge, which was a real meat feast.   It seems weird in the middle of a wildlife area, but Caiman is also a functioning cattle station.  But that was behind Caiman’s creation; to show that cattle farmers and predators can share the same space in relative harmony, within a naturally wild environment that hasn’t been specifically adapted to farming.  They say jaguars only take 2% of their herd, which is easily offset by the tourist dollars Caiman brings in to directly support local communities.

Caiman has a good and very clean swimming pool. At other safari lodges I’ve been to, whilst they might have had pools, they were nearly always a little dirty, from elephants, monkeys etc taking a bath or a drink.  But Caiman lodge is completely fenced off to stop larger animals getting in.

But the fence can’t impede the smaller critters: staff warned us to be on the lookout for scorpions, spiders and snakes.  We only came across the latter; a tiny docile-looking snake, which the staff couldn’t actually identify, but which I later learned was a baby of a member of the highly venomous cobra family!

Caiman is a great place to stay for a safari in the Pantanal.  Its 53,000 hectares are truly beautiful right across its different landscapes, covering grasslands, scrub, dense bush and lakes.  IMHO it was even more attractive than the geography we’ve explored on African safaris, and I personally found the lodge, the food and the facilities to be superior to much more expensive African lodges I’ve been to.  And the staff were great, right from my first contact with Pedro: most spoke English, the naturalists/guides were incredibly enthusiastic about their work and the indigenous drivers brought insightful and fun local knowledge.  9.5/10

I have written about the wildlife we encountered in a separate post.