Spirit of the Jaguar

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Spirit of the Jaguar
Summer School
25th July 6th August
Damian Allen
Director of Children's Services
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Video Introduction
3
Jaguar Explorers - Meet The Team
4
Area Maps
The Pantanal
South America
and
Brazil
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What are Knowsley doing to help?

• The Porto Joffre area has no school and
  currently 40 children
• receive no education at all.

• The Knowsley Summer School project and the
  friendship gifts
• brought from Knowsley enabled him a meeting
  between the
• local mayor Clovis Martins and the President
  of the
• conservation charity, Douglas Trent.

• This resulted in the charity committing 10,000
  to
• contribute to building a school and a house
  for
• teachers with the local council agreeing to
  secure the
• land and provide two teachers.

• Furthermore, this deal prompted the local hotel
• owner to contribute an equal amount to provide
• another school further downstream.

• This was real development work in action
• involving Knowsley pupils making a real
  difference
• to the life chances of some children in
  Brazil.

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Expedition Diary
Day 1 22 - 07 - 05

• Start of the Spirit of the Jaguar expedition.
• First stop Manchester airport via bus from
  Whaley Bridge.
• Then flight to Rio de Janerio for 3 days before
  flying to city of Cuiaba
• in the state of Mato Grosso to visit the
  largest wetland on earth - The Pantanal.

Day 2 23 - 07 - 05

• Arrived after 10 hour flight from Paris.
•  Although winter it is still 28 degrees!
• Greeted by views of Sugar Loaf mountain and the
  famous statue of Christ the
• Redeemer overlooking Rio

Day 3 24 - 07 - 05

• Take a train up the mountainside through
  rainforest with
• spider monkeys to visit the Christ the
  Redeemer statue
• the views of Rio are breath-taking!

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Day 4 25 - 07 - 05

• Visit the famous 'Hippy Market' in Ipanema
• Visit the Sugar Loaf mountain for a 'hairy' but
  exciting trip on a cable car to the top.
• Return to pack for flight to Cuiaba and our
  adventure to the Pantanal.
• 1231 pm - In Sao Paulo awaiting connection to
  Cuiaba where we will hire a car.
• 1347 - Still in Sao Paulo. Flight delayed due
  to poor weather.
• 1804 pm - Arrived in Cuiaba, the state capital
  of Matto Grosso. Now to get some
• transport to the Pantanal.

Day 5 26 - 07 - 05

• 00.32am - Arrived in remote Pantanal town of
  Pocone.  Staying at Hotel Skala
• and aim to wake at dawn to travel along
  transpantaneiro to JER.
• 0951 - Had an interesting fish meal the night
  before made from a local species
• called Pintado, Setting off now to witness the
  dawn chorus in the Pantanal.

Day 6 27 - 07 - 05

• On the dirt road Transpantaneiro 10KM South of
• Pacone. The road has about 120 wooden bridges
• along its path.

• Drove to Porto Joffre 40km further down the
• transpantaneria a tiny remote village with
• no more than 300 people. We interviewed
• the local children about their lives

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Day 7 28 - 07 - 05

• Travelled with Lerinhno the jaguar hunterto
  look for jaguars - having heard one in
• the night behind the JER and witnessed,
  scratch marks on a tree and a footprints
• in the mud we only discovered the carcass of a
  dead cow - killed the week before
• by a jaguar. The teeth marks on its skull
  showed it to be an old cat - they like the
• brains apparently!

Day 8 29 - 07 - 05

• We left JER and filmed the final goodbye to week
  one of the Summer School
• form the Pixiam River having taken an amazing
  boat ride and seen four
• Giant River otters (5ft in length)!

• We then went to Pocone to meet the Mayor and
  explain the
• work we had done and the link with children in
  Knowsley.  

Day 9 30 - 07 - 05

• 2145 - Been on the road for several hours
  endless
• roundtrip.  Still 300 km to go to Vila Bela on
  Bolivian
• border.
• 2341 - Now arrived in Vial Bella.  Hysterical
  interaction
• with hotel owner who took us into every room
  thinking he
• had one for 3 people before he realized he
  hadnt.  Now
• looking for our guide of 3 years ago, called
  Badu, so we
• can journey up to the Lost World tomorrow.

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Day 10 31 - 07 - 05

• Met up with the guide Badu and had the most
  wonderful evening in his house
• with his lovely family.

• His teenage son is guiding us up to the Lost
  World Plateau to view the 280m high
• waterfall Jatoba.  This will be a 12 hour trip
  in the scorching heat so up before
• dawn.

Day 11 01 - 08 - 05

• 1140 - Trip to 280m high waterfall took 10
  hours.

• 1148 - At the end of the gorge we were greeted
  by an amazing view of colossal
• towering rock walls either side of us.  Three
  3km into the canyon our next challenge
• was to scale 60m waterfall with no climbing
  gear which we did luckily without
• incident.

Day 12 02 - 08 - 05

• On our return to the JER the searchlight pick
  out a
• cat-like animal 20m away which turned out to be
  an
• Ocelot which we videoed. Lehrinho explained
  that the
• Ocelot had killed all of his wife's chickens
  recently.  
• We are going out again tomorrow in Eduardo's
  4x4 in
• search of Jaguars...

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Day 13 03 - 08 - 05

• We arrived back at the JER only to find in our
  absence that Doug Trent, the
• President of Focus Conservation Fund, had seen
  a large male Jaguar at 9.00am
• cross the road at the very site we had set our
  camera up.

• Eduardo's cousin Fabricio was celebrating his
  20th birthday in traditional pantanterio
• style - a BBQ prepared from a freshly
  slaughtered cow and smoked over an open
• wood fire on sticks. Being vegetarian, I
  decline to participate preferring to eat bananas
• and rice and beans.

Day 14 04 - 08 - 05

• We returned to the JER to pack, say goodbye to
  Eduardo, Lehrinho and his family and
• to make ready our journey to Pocone to meet
  the Mayor of Porto Joffre and to make
• our case to save the Pantanal.

• We are due to fly to Rio on Friday and
• then to visit the Casa Jimmy a refuge for
• abandoned street children to make a
• presentation and meet some of the
• children who will benefit from money we
• raised as part of the Knowsey 3 Peaks
• Challenge ( www.knowsley3peaks.org.uk)
• before sightseeing and returning to the
• UK on Monday.

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Spirit of the Jaguar The Expedition Continues .
Full details of the background of the programme,
the Summer School activities and the
presentations made by the children can be seen on
the website www.spiritofthejaguar.org.uk
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The Expedition
Continues .