Cuiabá: the gateway to Brazil's Pantanal

At the geographic center of South America, Cuiabá remains the most convenient starting point to reach the Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland zone.

A car rental or organized tour remains necessary for the Pantanal.

The Geodesic Mark of South America, a monument marking the exact geographical centre of the South American continent, is located in nearby Chapada dos Guimarães.

A few steps away, the Natural History Museum of Cuiabá displays fauna remains from the Pantanal, including endangered species such as the jaguar and hyacinth macaw.

Heading south you reach the northern Pantanal, where photographic safaris allow you to observe caimans, capybaras and hundreds of species of aquatic birds.

As evening approaches, the riverside of the Cuiabá river comes alive with restaurants serving fluvial fish in the heart of the city.

The Pantanal, extending over an area larger than Greece, hosts the greatest concentration of observable wildlife in all of South America, surpassing even the Amazon in visibility thanks to lower and more open vegetation.

Cuiabá, founded in the eighteenth century during the gold rush in the Brazilian interior, remains today the gateway not only to the Pantanal but also to southern Amazonia, the only city in the world near both ecosystems.