Guyana

Guyana from Flavia’s perspective...

13.09.2007 - 25.09.2007 35 °C

We have been in Guyana for almost two weeks.
Guyana is a bit of a strange place, certainly more unique than most of the other countries we have visited so far. For a start, there are no Mc Donalds in Guyana!! Secondly, most of the country is rainforest, with the exception of the coast. When you fly over it, it is an expanse of green and no towns, like an unlimited broccoli field.
Culturally, it does not belong to South America at all. The Spanish-speaking countries and Guyana are two worlds entirely apart, and not just because of the language. Georgetown strikes you straight away with its British colonial wooden architecture, while there is no salsa or reggaeton beat to be heard anywhere on the streets - it is all reggae or pop or black hip hop. The country is also scattered with Indu and Chinese-looking temples, mosques, and the churches are either Catholic or Anglican. Guyana is still very under-developed and Georgetown is to me a big messy place. I hated it for the first few days, but later started to get used to it. Another two weeks and I might end up not wanting to leave!! Mmm, maybe not that much, but one certainly gets to like it a lot better after a few days. We met an Irish guy who was sent here 22 years ago and for the first 6 months he kept ringing his managers to be transferred back, only to end up living here for all this time now.

Guyana is a VERY HOT country and my stay here has been considerably affected by the HEAT. While auntie Bridget’s thermometer only indicated 30 something degrees at any given time, to me it has felt more like 40 C and over. As a result, I have spent most of my time and thoughts on one thing: trying to stay cool. Somehow, Gregory has not been affected to the same extent – perhaps too excited for being back in his homeland to notice the scorching sun? It was good and interesting to see the country and where he is from, and even see his grand parents house in the countryside.
We spent most of our days in Georgetown, staying with auntie Bridget and being driven around by Wayne, her grandson. Her house is in the outskirts of GT and quite a good one for the local standards, so we have been lucky to be able to live in a comfortable place with all facilities and eating delicious Guyanese food (though she says she does not like cooking).

Last week we went to see the local zoo and botanical gardens. While the latter were destroyed by some floods years back and there is very little of it left to see, the zoo was a lot more interesting than expected. The huge puma in the tiny cage there is still haunting me, but apart from this, the collection of local animals there is quite striking. Animals I never knew existed!! The manatee, a huge vegetarian water mammal between an elephant and a walrus. The harpy eagle, a huge raptor bird measuring almost a metre in height with dinosaur feet, probably able to lift an 8-year-old child. The giant otter, a beautiful huge otter that apparently can be domesticated and will defend you better than a dog. The jaguarundi and the tayra, beautiful feline-looking mammals with a long body and tail.
Last Friday we went to see one of the country top attractions, the Kaieteur waterfalls. To get there you have to take one of those tiny planes and fly over the jungle for over an hour. We did the tour and the falls were indeed quite impressive. And very hot, of course. Only 10 people in the plane including the pilot!!
Friday night we took the bus to Iwokrama, a centre for rain forest conservation and development where tourists can stay and do excursions into the rain forest. Expensive place to stay but the money all goes to conservation as it is a non-profit place, so go there!! It lies between Georgetown and Lethem (Lethem is the gateway to the Brazilian border) almost 400 km inland. There is one big unpaved red earth road crossing the country north to south, and this is the road we took to get to Iwokrama (www.iwokrama.org). The bus was quite remarkable: tough, more like a four-wheel camion camouflaged like a bus. It was 9 hours each way and it was a long bumpy journey, but nevertheless very interesting. Iwokrama was a good place, though we saw only a few animals. You know the animals are there, all around you, but they are real wild animals and not really keen to make themselves be seen. We were disappointed but had to remind ourselves that we were not in the Galapagos any longer...no more 5 animals per square meter. In fact, they say that a jaguar needs 100 square km of territory to roam comfortably in, so what chances does one have??? The only semi-tame animal there was at the centre was a fairly big black caiman in the river, maybe 3 meters in length or so. The caiman has been living in that part of the river for the past 10 years and has gotten used to the people, so the workers there – and some tourists, though not us!!! – bathe in the water alongside it without too much concern. Other than that, we saw a good few birds, including toucans and scarlet macaws, but not the harpy eagle... We also came across a few monkeys, mostly capuchin and red howlers, and saw a sleeping sloth at the top of a tree. And that was it!! On the second day we got caught in the rain, and what a rain it was! We got absolutely soaked, in a matter of half hour the sky was black and we were on this little motor boat and the rain was coming down so hard that we could not keep our eyes open and were praying that the boatman could see where he was going... to the point that I lent him my sunglasses to enhance our chances of survival and avoid hitting land at high speed. We only just about saved my camera by putting it in a semi-dry cavity in the boat, which should remind anybody going out there walking in the rainforest that the RAINforest is called like that because of a reason...so always take a plastic bag with you for your camera!!

Today we passed by the market and my high spirits were hit real hard: next to the chickens and rabbits, they had cages with capuchin and squirrel monkeys and they all looked really worried and frightened. Not sure if this is legal, I hope it is not. Will have to think about what to do about it.

We are leaving tomorrow for Barbados

Here are some pics.

GEORGETOWN
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Georgetown's cathedral