Name: Araras Eco Lodge
Address: Transpantaneira Road, Pocone, Pocone, Pocone, 78175-008, Brazil
Rating: 9

Air conditioning

Smoking areas

Smoke-free property

Gift shop

Garden

Terrace

General

Non-smoking rooms

Room service

Family room

Rooms

Accessibility features

Accessibility

Ironing

Laundry

Safe-deposit box

Services and amenities

Diet menu (on request)

Snack bar

Bottled water (at extra charge)

Meals

Internet access

Internet

Airport transportation

Transfer services

Transfer

Spanish

German

English

Italian

French

Portuguese

Languages Spoken

Tour assistance

Tourist services

Library

Bike rental

Hiking

Fishing

Sun Deck

Recreation

Parking

Swimming pool

Outdoor pool

Beach facilities

Beach/pool towels

Pool and beach

Event facilities

Business

Cycling

Sports

Family/Kid Friendly

Kids

Location

At the hotel

Araras Eco Lodge

Pocone

child-bed

child-bed-fee

external-private-bathroom

private-bathroom

shared-bathroom

10-beds

11-beds

12-beds

13-beds

14-beds

15-beds

16-beds

17-beds

18-beds

19-beds

2-beds

20-beds

21-beds

22-beds

23-beds

24-beds

25-beds

26-beds

27-beds

28-beds

29-beds

3-beds

30-beds

31-beds

32-beds

33-beds

34-beds

35-beds

36-beds

37-beds

38-beds

39-beds

4-beds

40-beds

5-beds

6-beds

7-beds

8-beds

9-beds

king-bed

queen-bed

limited-time

lounge

treatment

no-window

bay-view

bosphorus-view

canal-view

city-view

courtyard-view

garden-view

golf-view

harbour-view

inland-view

lake-view

land-view

mountain-view

ocean-front

ocean-view

oceanside

panoramic-view

park-view

partial-ocean-view

partial-sea-view

partial-view

pool-view

river-view

sea-front

sea-view

street-view

sunrise-view

sunset-view

water-view

with-view

annex

basement

main-building

1-bedroom

2-bedrooms

3-bedrooms

4-bedrooms

5-bedrooms

6-bedrooms

not-guaranteed

wired-internet-access

smoking

sauna

duplex

safe

mini-bar

breakfast-for-1

breakfast-for-2

pets-allowed

wi-fi

kitchen

We had an amazing experience at the Araras Lodge. The room was clean, spacious and comfortable. Everyone at the lodge was super friendly, great service and very good food. Our guide (Roberto) was excellent and very experienced which allowed us to see a lot of wildlife. The Jaguar Express at Porto Jofre was an amazing experience to spot the jaguar, otters, caymans and a lot of other local animals…highly recommend! 

Great Experience, highly recommend! 

Cant say enough about this place. Wonderful service, great guides, amazing birds and wildlife. Also your room has a/c so you can escape the unrelenting heat from 10 am to 3 pm. There is also a wonderful pool. Everything runs very smoothly and you really get to see a lot of wildlife. Perfect 

Wonderful Lodge 

First of all the good points!
Our guide Judy was great - very experienced and knowledgeable and we saw a massive number of birds plus plenty of small mammals. 
Vehicles used are in good shape and our driver Pedro was very competent and helpful
Food was plentiful and varied if relatively basic. 
Rooms have reasonable aircon (it was 41 c so just as well!) but dark and basic.

So what did we feel was less good ?
We were a couple booked on a private basis and felt we got a less good service than larger groups
We got bumped off an arranged horse riding excursion because ‘a large group had requested it’ and had a difficult conversation to get it reinstated - we had to go early
For lunch and breakfast (taken outside) we were put away from the main area - still under shade but not where we wanted to be
Every meal I had to ask which options were gluten free - it would have been nice if the team had remembered!
Don’t come expecting genuine wilderness as this is a working cattle ranch - you will see a jaguar if you book the additional jaguar express but it is unlikely (though possible) otherwise
You will see lots of birds (including toucans and macaws )and we saw agouti, caimans, coati, monkeys , deer, black fox, tapir and capybara

Excellent guide but some issues with service

We stayed at the Araras Ecolodge in the Pantanal for 4-nights in early-Sep (R4,391/night). The lodge, located on a large, active horse and cattle ranch in the middle of ranch country, is in a nicely landscaped area beside a couple of artificial ponds and a small channel that attract most of the wildlife to be seen in the area. The lodge rooms were in an outward-facing U-shaped motel unit, some facing the small, pleasant pool, others the vegetation-filled pond. There was an outside sitting area (some breakfasts and lunch) backed by a recreation building, with a dining area, bar and reception in the lodge. 

Our regular double room was small and utilitarian, with a comfortable bed, a few open shelves, AC, wall-mounted fan, and a safe. The bathroom was large with a shower with a good supply of hot water. The room had daily maid service, but the towels and linens were not changed during our stay, despite hand towels and bathroom mats that became filthy from our exposure to wind blown dust on walks through the ranch's trails and on excursions along the highway. The food ranged from good (local fish) to average (roasted chicken, breakfast eggs, ham, cheese) to poor (tough pork, tough beef, over-cooked vegetables). Drinks were moderately priced, R14-18 for beer, R20 for a caipirinha, a bottle of wine starting at R120. The staff were universally good, friendly, helpful, articulate (most seemed to speak at least some English), and the guides were eager to share their knowledge and enthusiastic in their search for new species to show us. 

Our package included pick-up and drop-off in Cuiaba (2-hr drive), 3 meals plus an afternoon snack each day, and 3 activities/day. The activities were guided trail walks, a horseback ride, night safaris (all on trails on the lodge's immediate property), a boat trip, and a photo-safari along the highway. Unfortunately, once we left the immediate area of the lodge, which had plenty of capybaras, birds, a few caiman, most of these activities occurred on ranch land where the most frequent animal sightings were cattle and horses. For example, on our night safaris, we saw only a few rabbits and a distant deer, on our walk to the Stork Tower (erected beside a stork's nest) we saw a single agouti. The walk thru a wooded area to the Howler Monkey tower was better, with sightings of capuchin monkeys, coatis, several species of birds. The general lack of species abundance and diversity was compounded by poorly maintained infrastructure, including boardwalk trails so dilapidated that they were permanently closed, active trails (Howler Monkey Tower) with broken boards, shaky hand rails, and unusable sections, and the 30 m Stork Tower that had questionable stairs and termite-infested timbers that made the entire structure shaky. The only activity that had an abundance of animal sightings was a boat trip on a river embarking at the Pantanal Matto Grosso Hotel, a 1-hr drive along the Trans-Pantineira Hwy in an open truck (take a face mask, the dust from passing vehicles can be choking). 

To mitigate the poor sightings on the ranch (prior to our arrival, we had considered it unimportant to see jaguars, that we would see sufficient Pantenal wildlife without having to to take an expensive add-on), we took the Jaguar Express tour, which embarked on a boat after a 3-hr drive S of the lodge to the Cuiaba R near Porto Joffre. There, species such as birds, caiman, capybara were abundant, and we also saw 3 jaguars. The cost, at R2,750/person, was significant; when added to the per diem that we had already paid, the day cost an astonishing $2,000 US.

So, why the poor rating for a lodge with comfortable accommodation, a pleasant local environment, reasonable food, and friendly, helpful staff? The Araras Ecolodge is competing in a global ecotourism market in Africa, Central America, Australia, SE Asia. I compare our experience here with similarly priced safaris in Kenya and Zambia, and cheaper eco-lodges in Namibia, S Africa, Australia, Asia, North America. At this price, I expect an ecolodge to be in an area with abundant, diverse wildlife, closely associated with conservancies or national parks, not in active ranching country. At this price, I expect easy access to wildlife that does not require long drives on busy, dusty roads to simply to reach embarkation points. At this price, I expect well-maintained ecotourism infrastructure, not broken-down walkways and rickety towers. At this price, I expect at least some degree of luxury in either accommodation or meals. 

Overall, the value delivered by the Araras Ecolodge was insufficient to justify the high price we paid. It was a big disappointment.
 

Poor Value Considering the High Price

We had an incredible time at Araras. The pick-up was really efficient and enjoyable with a lunch stop at a good quality all you can eat restaurant (price not included with your lodge stay - additional costs for the lunch, drinks and desert) and a fun game drive to the lodge on the way. We saw many birds and caiman from the roadside.
The lodge is in a beautiful setting, with many trees and lakes that attract a wide range of wildlife. The rooms are comfortable and clean (we booked one of the cheaper rooms and it was spacious with a decent bed and shower, there was a communal seating area with mosquito screens for those staying in these rooms). 
There are hyacinth macaws nesting at the lodge - just by the swimming pool, and we saw up to 8 of them each day we were there.
Our guide, Bruno, was excellent - he was incredibly knowledgeable about the flora and fauna and we saw a great many birds, mammals, reptiles and insects, including a tamandua feeding on a termite mound a few metres away from where we were walking, crab-eating foxes, marmosets, capuchins, so many different species of bird and many more amazing creatures.
On our night drives we saw a crab-eating racoon, tapir, a giant anteater and ocelots. 
We loved the horse riding and walking tours, the food and hospitality was wonderful as well.
We did the Jaguar Express - it is a very long day with many hours in the vehicle and on a boat but it was well-worth it. We had 3 great sightings of jaguar and also got to see the giant otters. 
We would highly recommend staying with Araras - and taking the jaguar express tour - we saw more wildlife than we imagined possible in our time with them.

A wonderful experience in the northern Pantanal

We had a fantastic stay at the lodge. Our guide Tony was exceptional at his job and his knowledge of the local wildlife was evident throughout our time here. We liked the food also it had good variety and dessert with lunch and dinner was great. The staff were all friendly although I had no Portuguese to speak with most of them. Transfer to and from the lodge went extremely well also. The thing we found hard was the price. It is an extremely expensive stay for 3 nights however you do get what you pay for. If you want to do the jaguar tour it’s an extra substantial sum of money as well I believe. I would recommend this lodge to others 100% just be prepared to pay quite a bit for the package.

A Fantastic Expensive Stay

We had a wonderful 5 nights here.  A friendly, clean and welcoming Pousada  - great air con, good food, decent pool.  Lots of good adventures - but the absolute highlight for us was a The Jaguar Express day trip .. it’s a long day .. but wee wee lucky .. it was our first day!  Our main guide Judy was wonderful.

Great adventures from a lovely setting

I can truly say that this is an amazing place to be ,nature  and wildlife ,quiet place.
Everybody is very nice and take care of you .
You have different activities if you would like ,also relax near the pool .
A special thanks to the owners of this lodge who were always trying to find out is everything was  fine and to my guide Roberto who was really fantastic .
I probably come back for sure. Thanks also to all the people who work there .
NATHALIE from France

Amazing lodge

Excellent lodge with good rooms and food. But, more importantly, very good activities and guides (we had Tony and Carlos for the jaguar express). Jaguar express is pretty expensive, but totally worth it. Horseback riding in the swamp, canoeing with the caimans and the trekkings are highly recommended as well.

Brilliant Pantanal experience at Araras lodge

100% exceeded our (already high) expectations. The staff went out of their way to provide the best experience for everyone, they were incredibly nice and knowledgeable, made the place feel like home / being with friends. Delicious meals with great variety, huge portions! The activities were very well organized, our guide Jimmy was always on time and gave us a lot of information about the area and the animals we saw (and we were lucky to have seen many of them, including some rare sightings of anteaters). The horse riding and the boat tour (with caiman feeding) were the highlights of our trip. The horse riding felt perfectly safe and comfortable even for a complete beginner with no experience. The location is beautiful, they have an awesome pool with great water temperature, the rooms were well equipped, clean, with insect nets and a comfortable bed. Good shower!! It was great to meet the owners as well and talk to them about how this awesome place came to be. Say hi to the beautiful araras from us ;)

Araras Eco Lodge

Main amenities of the hotel

Available rooms

Location

Description of the hotel

What other amenities are there?

Policies

Check-in terms and conditions

Additional information

Payment