Pousada Piuval

a comfortable, unpretentious first stop off the Cuiabá road

Pousada Piuval sits at the northern end of the Transpantaneira, the raised dirt road that runs the length of Mato Grosso’s Pantanal, around two and a half hours from Cuiabá airport. It is the first lodge travellers reach on the road, on a private reserve of 7,000 hectares, by far the largest of any lodge along the Transpantaneira.

Piuval is a working cattle ranch as well as a lodge, and has combined the two for more than thirty years. The Eubank family, among the lodge’s owners, have increasingly built their tourism model around jaguar coexistence rather than conflict, working alongside the conservation research base at their gate.

On our visit, the lodge itself was spacious and spread out, with pleasant, well-planted gardens throughout. Some corners felt a little less finished than the rest of the property, though nothing was actively unpleasant.

The pool area has a particularly good outlook over open land dotted with waterholes, a spot worth lingering at through the day.

Instituto Impacto, a jaguar-cattle coexistence research base, sits a few minutes from the lodge gate. The project’s electric fencing has cut jaguar attacks on Piuval’s calves from twenty a year to four, with none at all inside the fenced maternity corrals, and a tourist fee model that channels a share of safari revenue back to the ranchers whose land the safaris cross.

Rooms

Guest accommodation at Piuval is spread across three room categories, all air-conditioned with private bathrooms. The Luxury Suites closest to the lake have the best outlook.

• Master Suite : x1
• Standard Apartment : x20
• Luxury Suite : x9

Activities

Pousada Piuval provides the following guided activities, not all of which are necessarily included in the room rate:

• Vehicle safari
• Walking safari
• Night vehicle safari
• Horseback safari
• Observation tower visits (two towers on the property)

We found giant anteater sightings to be the real standout here, especially as the dry season sets in and animals disperse across the property’s termite mounds and roadside fruit trees. A guide who knows which trees are currently fruiting also has a real chance at tapir.

On our visit, the guiding was the one area that fell short of the rest of the property, so we would always book a private, wildlife-specialist guide here rather than rely on a standard lodge guide.