ARWC 2015 Brazil - Pantanal
Pantanal – Into the Unknown
Rob Howard / 09.11.2015
For the adventurous there are no blanks on the map to explore any more, but Pantanal is as close as it gets.
It’s a vast wetland wilderness with no roads and almost no people and although there are tourist visitors attracted by the rich wildlife they don’t penetrate far into the intricate waterways and rich ecosystem of the Pantanal beyond the limited access points on the fringes. Very few have truly explored an area which Liga Outdoor and the AR World Series have chosen for the 2015 Adventure Race World Championships.
It’s a fitting choice and a brave one, and the 32 teams who have put themselves forward for the race are venturing into the unknown in a way they will never have done before. That’s saying something. The elite of expedition adventure racing have fed their adventure rat by touring the globe and seeking out the most remote, beautiful and challenging locations over a couple of decades now. And when they got there they crossed them in a way, and at a speed, others simply would not have the skills or strength to accomplish. Yet, I wonder how many had heard of Pantanal, let alone visited it, before the race venue was announced.
Getting there is a challenge, but that’s to be expected. Even so it’s no easy task moving a team of 4 and their bursting gear and bike boxes to Brazil, cross country to Campo Grande, and then on a 430 kilometer drive on highway 262 to the border town of Corumba where the race will gather. Even then it’s a further 12 hour river boat ride up the Paraguay River to get to the start.
This journey takes teams into the very heart of South America to the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Corumba is a mining town on the border with both Bolivia and Paraguay and the Pantanal extends into both countries within its 210,000 square kilometres. (That’s about the size of Great Britain.)
Corumba was once the most popular starting point for visiting Pantanal and in the past has had a history including military adventures (there are two forts there) and smuggling. It retains some colonial architecture and remains a base for most of the Pantanal tourist agencies and is also an iron-ore mining town. The ore in the soil is said to contribute to the intense heat and humidity there, which the teams have been warned to expect, and in the wet season parts of the town flood.
It’s the rainfall and run off in the many rivers in the area which determine its nature as a wetland which changes throughout the year. In the wet season (November to April) it is extensively flooded and this combined with the basin-like nature of what was once a vast inland sea and the consistent temperatures between 20 and 35C has created as unique wetland environment. It’s a landscape of waterways, lagoons and dense vegetation, rich in wildlife.
This has presented the organisers with some unique problems and will present the teams with others. Liga Outdoor have had to plan a world championship race without a transport infrastructure and this affects their logistics and safety plans. These will obviously involve boat travel and it’s no surprise the race will include more kayaking than any past World Championships. In the 2 and a half years they have been visiting the area to plan they had to search out regions suitable for other elements of the course, trekking and mountain biking. There are areas of low hills and some of the trekking will be combined with pack rafting. (These have never been used in an adventure race in Brazil before.)
To make matters more complicated the region is ever-changing, depending on the rains and movements of the waterways. Not only are there no roads, there are no fixed paths and even water channels may shift.
Areas which are dry one year may be wet another and plans have had to be put in place for different course options dependent on conditions. Navigation will be difficult and perhaps the most challenging ever (on 1;100,000 maps which may be inaccurate) and the wet and humid conditions, plus the length of the course have lead some of the most experienced racers to predict the toughest ever World Championship.
Pantanal is not a blank on a map, it’s more of a question mark. No one is quite sure what the teams will find when they get there and how they will cope with the course, terrain, climate and wildlife. It’s going to be an uncompromising and fascinating World Championship.
[SleepMonsters Editor Rob Howard will be at the race reporting on how things turn out.]
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