We love exotic wildlife here at T London and in Brazil, the place to be is the Pantanal. Described as the biggest swamp in the world, the Pantanal takes forever to get to and is home to South America’s only big cat the jaguar – caiman, giant river otters and the globe’s largest parrot: the magnificently named (and endangered) Hyacinth macaw. We headed to an eco-lodge dedicated to protecting the macaw and ran into a BBC team filming a documentary on jaguars. The landscape is otherworldly – lagoons and wildlife at every turn. We loved the incredible birdlife, capybara (huge guinea pig-type creatures) and bizarre-looking giant ant-eaters, which are like a jigsaw of many other species put together. Here you feel closer to the origins of the earth – a great place to put things in perspective.