🇧🇴 Bolivia · Lowlands, the East and the Amazon
The Bolivian Pantanal is Bolivia's share of the Greater Pantanal, one of the largest and most biodiverse wetlands on the planet, shared with Brazil and Paraguay. In the far southeast of the country, two enormous protected areas —Otuquis National Park and San Matías ANMI— shelter a mosaic of marshes, flooded savanna, lagoons, rivers and forest where wildlife gathers spectacularly, especially in the dry season.
It's a wild, remote and little-explored destination, a world away from the mass circuits: a genuine South American safari. Jaguars, caimans, capybaras, marsh deer and hundreds of bird species live here, in landscapes of water and horizon that shift with the seasons. The usual base is the border towns of Puerto Suárez and Puerto Quijarro, next to the Tamengo channel and Lake Cáceres, across from Corumbá on the Brazilian side.
This guide gathers the essentials for approaching the Bolivian Pantanal realistically and respectfully: what Otuquis and San Matías are, what wildlife and landscapes to expect, the best time to go, what the logistics are like (a destination that demands an operator and planning), how to reach the Puerto Suárez/Quijarro area, where to sleep and eat, and practical tips for experiencing this wetland corner of southeastern Bolivia.
The Bolivian Pantanal is part of the Greater Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, shared with Brazil and Paraguay. In Bolivia it is protected by two large areas created in 1997: Otuquis National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area (Supreme Decree 24762, of July 31, 1997, covering more than a million hectares) and San Matías Integrated Management Natural Area (also from 1997, with some 2.9 million hectares, the second-largest protected area in the country). Both safeguard the extraordinary biodiversity of the wetland and are managed by SERNAP. The region, historically a border and cattle-ranching zone, is today a fledgling ecotourism destination. The history and the formation of the wetland are on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great department of the tropical east: Bolivia's economic engine, land of the cambas, home of the celebrated Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos and their baroque music, with the sacred rock of Samaipata, the forests of Amboró and Noel Kempff and the Bolivian Pantanal.
Read the history of Santa Cruz →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
For much of the 20th century, the only way to reach the Bolivian Pantanal overland was to board a train that Bolivians themselves renamed 'the death train'. The name wasn't advertising hype: it was earned during the construction of the railway, when hundreds of workers died of yellow fever and tropical diseases cutting the line between Santa Cruz and Puerto Suárez; later, once in service, the train was used to evacuate the sick from the jungle with a very high death rate along the way, and in the 1950s passengers who didn't pay for a ticket rode on the roof, where more than a few fell asleep and tumbled into the ravines beside the track. Today that train —modernized, brought back into service in 2026 as a tourist and passenger railcar— no longer kills anyone, but its name is still a reminder of how remote, demanding and frontier-like this corner of Bolivia has always been: the gateway to the Bolivian home of the jaguar, the largest cat in the Americas.
The Bolivian Pantanal makes no sense without the Greater Pantanal, one of the largest and most biodiverse tropical wetlands on the planet. It stretches across a vast plain shared by Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, in the upper basin of the Paraguay River, and covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of marshes, flooded savanna, lagoons, rivers and forest. Bolivia holds the southwestern portion of this immense system.
What defines the Pantanal is its flooding dynamic. Every year, during the rainy season, the rivers burst their banks and flood enormous areas, turning the plain into a giant mosaic of water. In the dry season, the waters slowly retreat, leaving lagoons, pools and grasslands where the wildlife gathers spectacularly. That annual pulse of rising and falling water is the engine behind one of the greatest concentrations of wildlife in the Americas.
Unlike dense Amazon rainforest, the Pantanal is a more open landscape of water and horizon, which makes it one of the best places on the continent for watching wildlife: here the animals don't hide beneath an impenetrable canopy, they gather by the water, in plain sight. That richness, together with its remote and barely exploited character on the Bolivian side, makes the Pantanal of Bolivia a wild and exceptional nature destination.
The biodiversity of the Bolivian Pantanal is one of its greatest treasures. Otuquis National Park alone holds impressive figures: some 262 plant species, 72 mammals, 340 birds, 55 amphibians, 66 reptiles and 169 fish have been recorded there. Those numbers give a sense of the abundance and variety of life the wetland sustains.
Among the mammals, the standout is the jaguar, the largest cat in the Americas and one of the symbols of the Pantanal, which finds one of its refuges in these wetlands. Capybaras (the largest rodents in the world), the marsh deer —an emblematic and threatened species—, monkeys, neotropical otters, tapirs and peccaries also live here, among many others. The reptiles are represented above all by the caimans (yacarés), which populate the lagoons and rivers in great numbers.
The birdlife is one of the great draws for naturalists: herons, spoonbills, the imposing tuyuyú (jabiru), kingfishers, raptors and countless water and savanna species make the Pantanal a dream destination for birdwatching. This richness makes Otuquis and San Matías key pieces in the conservation of South American biodiversity, and a unique setting for wildlife ecotourism.
Formal protection of the Bolivian Pantanal came in 1997, a key year for the conservation of the wetland. On July 31 of that year, through Supreme Decree No. 24762, Otuquis National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area was created in the far southeast of Santa Cruz, in the provinces of Germán Busch and Cordillera, alongside the borders with Brazil and Paraguay.
Otuquis covers a total area of close to 1,005,950 hectares (around 10,060 km²), most of it under the national park category —the strictest protection— and a smaller portion under the integrated management natural area category, which allows uses compatible with conservation. The area is a fundamental source and reservoir of fresh water and an essential habitat for the wildlife and plant life of the Pantanal.
That same year saw the establishment of the San Matías Integrated Management Natural Area, further north, covering some 2.9 million hectares, which made it the second-largest protected area in Bolivia. San Matías protects the transition between the Pantanal, the cerrado and the Chiquitano forest, and involves local populations in managing the territory. Together, Otuquis and San Matías form the great conservation shield of the Bolivian Pantanal, under the administration of the National Protected Areas Service (SERNAP).
The Bolivian Pantanal region has historically been a remote and harsh frontier: a land of extensive cattle ranching, scattered communities and a deep connection with the river world of the Paraguay. The towns of Puerto Suárez and Puerto Quijarro, next to Lake Cáceres and the Tamengo channel, across from Corumbá in Brazil, established themselves as the gateways to this corner of the country, tied as well to trade and river transport.
For a long time, access to the Pantanal was defined by difficulty: roads that flood, huge distances and scant infrastructure. The famous eastern railway linking Santa Cruz with the border —the 'death train'— was for decades one of the few connections, and it eventually suspended passenger service altogether. After six years out of operation, the Santa Cruz–Puerto Quijarro railcar was only brought back in 2026, with a weekly service that runs on Friday nights and arrives the following day, giving travelers a cheap alternative to flying to reach the gates of the Pantanal. That historic remoteness, however, helped preserve the wild character of the wetland.
In recent decades, the Bolivian Pantanal has begun to develop a fledgling ecotourism, with operators offering wildlife safaris, birdwatching and trips around the lagoons and channels. The sites with the most potential are concentrated near Puerto Suárez (Lake Cáceres, the viewpoints, the Motacucito caves, the Tamengo channel). The challenge ahead is to develop that tourism sustainably, so that it generates benefits for local communities while guaranteeing the conservation of one of the most valuable wetlands on the planet.