An anteater and a tiny kitten

We arrived by train at Quejillar, on the Bolivian/Brazilian border. Before we even got off the train we were approached by agents trying to sell us tours to the Pantanal. They helped us with transportation to the border and then to Brazilian immigration in Corumbá, where we had our passports stamped.

The three tour companies were all competing for our attention and criticizing each other, but in the end we learned that they are all working together. Two of them are brothers, and the other owners were socializing, hanging out together in the evening.

We chose Indi, who paid for our hotel room in Corumbá where we were hosted by Cristina and her lovable pet anteater Filipe! Filipe is one year old and not yet full grown. He is really cuddly and playful! When we first met him, he was drinking milk out of a bowl with his long toungue. He used his tongue to lap up milk, kind of like a cat except that his foot-long tongue curled around the perimiter of the bowl!

Later, Filipe sat on my lap and cuddled with me. Mostly, he likes to suck on fingers, which apparently helps his digestion, and he plays by grabbing with his front paws. When I tried to put him down on the ground, he tried to grab my legs and wrestle with me! He is soft, and has a mohawk or ridge on his back.

In the evening, while walking we found a tiny animal on the side of the street. I came closer and heard it mewing, and saw that it was a tiny kitten, just a couple of weeks old, barely big enough to open its eyes. I lifted it out of the street and onto the curb, but it fell back into the street. I asked around, but it didn~t belong to anyone and nobody would take it. Finally, we took it to Cristina at our hotel who said, "I~m a mom to Filipe; I can be a mom to this kitten too." She gave us milk, which we fed to the kitten, and sent us to the farmacia to buy a tiny bottle.

I´m amazed that people here seem to understand my Spanish with no problem. They seem to understand everything I say. I understand about 40% of what they say to me.