Pousada - Guest House

In the morning, when you are not on an early tour, you will be woken up by the Pantanal bird chirping. Before breakfast, it is worth having the morning sun reflected briefly on your skin, which gives you a great energy boost for the whole day.

Buffet breakfast is served in our dining room. The Pantaneiros do not eat breakfast so early, there is only a morning coffee called «Cafezinho». At 8.30 a.m., however, a real meal, as we have already worked hard, as was used to do here in Europe among the farmers.

After your excursions you will have time to enjoy the warm, clean water in our small pool or to swing into balance in one of the hammocks.

Our 18 rooms are very comfortably with air conditioning, fan, mosquito nets, towels, shower/WC.

Our chalets offer the same comfort.

Lunch and dinner are also served as a buffet. Ana, our cook and her team, will serve you some regional menus. The drinks will be noted with your order and you can pay for them before your departure.

The pousada is provided with WiFi.

You can climb our tower of 17 meters and go there alone on foot. There you will often see different species of monkeys, agoutis or even tapirs. However, you can go alone as well but you have to inform your guide for this walking tour. Never leave the trail and use the same way back. (danger of confusion)

In the evening, when you look up on a clear sky, you see that we are a million star guesthouse.

Vision of the founding family

«We need the wild animals, the wild animals do not need us.
Nature sends us pictures, we have to read them correctly.

That was more than 20 years ago.
A time when absolutely no one would have thought of it».

What we have achieved so far:

Being in the middle of the jungle of the Pantanal, we have many animal visitors every day... Our large pond, Lake Victoria, is home to countless caimans, fish, otters and is a watering hole for capybara, tapirs, anteaters and many more.

We have many bird and bat boxes spread throughout our area. Since 2021/2022 we have been helping our local stork - the Jabiru - to build a nest. The Jabiru is a delicate bird that can only nest and reproduce if it feels safe in its nest for a long time.

Upon arrival, our guests are informed about how to behave in the nature of the Pantanal. They are advised not to feed animals hand to mouth, not to touch them either, to respect nature and not to leave litter.

We constantly train our staff in how to deal with nature. Training content last year: you should not feed the animals for show, how to prevent forest fires and how to organize tours without a car.

We do not have public transport in this region. However, we organize carpooling for our guests and staff as much as possible, depending on the arrival time at the airport and the tours booked, but also other factors such as shopping and holidays and days off of local staff.

All our guest houses are handmade with local materials. There are also recycled products, such as the glass for the mosaics. The main building was restored from an old farmhouse and kept its original look. During construction, we minimized the impact on the environment by collecting transport from local suppliers.

«It doesn't matter how big the footprints are that you leave. What matters is whether you leave footprints or not».

«There is no need for a boss.
Every employee is equal.
It doesn't matter if man or woman, religion, LBQT.
it is not «my» company, it is ours.

That was more than 20 years ago.
A time when absolutely no one would have thought of it.»

What we have achieved so far:

We recruit over 80% local staff, accompany them in their daily work and give them a future. We pay fair wages, all our staff have paid holidays and support in case of illness. Our staff are paid monthly for the whole year, not just seasonally. Of course, they can keep the tips that guests leave. During their stay at our lodge, our staff receive free meals, coffee, water and room. We provide our staff with all the equipment they need for their work, they do not have to bring it themselves.

We don't fire anyone if they make a mistake, we guide them and show them how to do better next time. Even though we know that we will be sued for large sums of money as soon as an employee quits, we enable employees to have long-term, secure jobs. We are becoming known in the region for these types of work contracts. During the COVID 19 pandemic, we were able to keep everyone employed.

Our nearest community is Poconé, where we can buy local food for the meals in our restaurant. We also have our own home-grown food that we serve to our customers. In Poconé there are also some artisans we can ask for help. As the local shops cannot supply us with all the goods we need, we organize shopping trips to Cuiaba - in combination with other tasks (picking up guests, staff, car service, etc.).

We support equality, whether men or women, accepting all religions. We are also proud of this, because this is still not common in Brazil nowadays.

We provide our staff with free training, partly in groups, partly in individual training. Topics are for example: environmental protection, using PCs & smartphones, equality, honesty, preparing seasonal dishes and much more. Some of these trainings are online, others are in person.

Year after year we try to organize a meeting between the staff of the other lodges in this region with one main goal: to improve the cooperation between the lodges, this is unfortunately still a long way to go.

«It doesn't matter how big the footprints are that you leave. What matters is whether you leave footprints or not.»

«People should understand what it means to live in harmony with nature.
People must learn to act in an environmentally conscious way.

That was more than 20 years ago.
A time when absolutely no one would have thought of it.»

What we have achieved so far:

Everything that is done, built, planted, depends on the local authorities. Unfortunately, alternative energy sources are not promoted to this day, no, unfortunately, they are still slowed down. Even today it depends on the respective state. Energy efficient appliances are not really known in this region. So we are working hard to minimize energy consumption: Only light when needed, automatic sensors to switch off, no standby on computers, information for our guests on how to save energy. We also plan to get solar energy with our own panels in the future.

We also depend on local authorities to collect and recycle waste. It's not that we don't want to recycle. It's just that the recycled waste and the non-recycled waste end up in the same place: burnt or buried. So we collect the waste in our lodge and take it to the nearest official landfill. It's the least we can do at the moment....

During the welcome drink, each guest is personally informed by our staff about our active environmental protection measures. Extinguishing lamps when leaving the room, saving water, how to use the toilet paper, where the waste bins are located. Our guests are informed about the use of the air conditioner and the ceiling fan and asked to run them only during their stay in the room, not the whole day. Bed linen is changed during the stay only on request, otherwise only when leaving the lodge. We also provide bath and pool towels.

We use water from our main water tank, which we pump from the ground, as there are no water pipes. As the dry season in the Pantanal gets longer and harder every year, we have an irrigation plan to save water. We use only water-efficient showers and toilets. We don't use any additives. Speaking of water, you can't drink the pumped water. It would have to be purified with chemicals. Chemicals that end up seeping back into the soil of the Pantanal.

We compost safely and use garden waste. We were the first lodge in the region to grow our own food and also use horse manure for the garden. Of our approximately 600 hectares of land, we only use a small part as a garden, the rest is untouched nature. The beauty of it is that we can grow our own vegetables, which we prepare in our kitchen.

Our staff regularly clean the land and roads of rubbish and litter to prevent and avoid bushfires.

Our two offices also work paperless as far as possible. Our employees are equipped with smartphones and computers. This allows them to access information about guests, tours, cars, room numbers and much more online without having to print it out. Our marketing also does without printed material and is designed to work on the computer.

«It doesn't matter how big the footprints are that you leave. What matters is whether you leave footprints or not.»

Our Guesthouse

Vision of the founding family