Travel, Photography, Life.
Guyana
My travels in Guyana.
Another Day in Siparuta
Jan 11th
December 29, 2006
Day 399
Bamboo Raft Experiment Day 4
We spent another full day in Siparuta. A lot of interesting people came and talked to us, including the captain (mayor) of the village. One guy invited us to go fishing with him in his boat in the afternoon, but he didn’t show up. He returned later in the evening with a bagful of bananas and oranges as an apology.
Craig caught some more big piranhas for us, and we learned about a kid in the village who recently lost three fingers to the vicious fish. His mom was cleaning a fish, so there were guts in the water, and her kid was splashing around in the water, which attracted a huge piranha. Before anyone saw it coming, it had bitten off the boy’s index, middle, and ring fingers. Today I made sure to be extra careful when handling the piranhas as a result.
Several people assured us today that two boats for sure would pass the village in the middle of the night. For insurance, I decided to sleep on the jetty so I could signal any incoming boat with my head lamp well before it passed us. About 2:00 AM, a boat came toward us. I flashed my light at it over and over again, but for some reason, it didn’t stop. The boats don’t normally stop at Siparuta, so I really had my work cut out for me. A few hours later, the second boat came, and thankfully it stopped.
The boat, known as the “Washabo Boat,” was much shorter and narrower than the boat we originally road in on. It was so overloaded with people and cargo, there was barely enough room on it to sit, let alone lay down. On top of that, the overloaded boat constantly swayed violently back and forth. At one point, we went around a corner, the boat leaned to the right, and never corrected itself. The boat had to stop and everyone had to move as far to the left as possible for it to stand straight again. It was a bit scary for me, but we made it back in one piece shortly after dawn.
Large Guyanese Piranha
Jan 11th
December 28, 2006
Day 398
Bamboo Raft Experiment Day 3
We awoke in the small Guyanese village of Siparuta. We learned that there would be a boat passing in the middle of the night, so we spent the day chilling out. It’s a picturesque place with lots of mangoes and cashews to munch on. Being in Guyana, there’s no electricity in town, so it’s a much quieter place than Apoera. Craig went fishing from the huge jetty and caught two large piranha, so we had no problem getting dinner despite being back in Guyana with only Suriname money.
The only thing we were told about the timing of tonight’s boat was that it would pass about twelve hours after the afternoon’s low tide, but as far as we knew, it could’ve passed us at any time of the night. As it turned out, no boat came all night, so we would have to wait another day to try to leave Siparuta.
The photo album for this entry is here.
Lots of Patient Waiting
Dec 21st
December 19, 2006
Day 389
Craig and I took off at the crack of dawn this morning. We managed to get on a minibus right away, then a ferry and another bus to the Corentine River, which borders Guyana and Suriname. We waited in line 45 minutes to buy a ticket for the ferry to cross the river, but that didn’t really matter because we sat around for two more hours while they unloaded the ferry from its previous crossing. The ferry took all of fifteen minutes to cross the river, but then we had to go through customs on the Suriname side. That took another hour, and suddenly it was mid afternoon.
We got onto a bus to Nieu Nickery, and once we got into town, we waited another hour while the confused driver figured out where to drop people off. There was nowhere to get anything to eat all day (unlike Latin America, where you’re never more than five minutes away from food, even if you’re on a bus speeding down a highway) so my patience was wearing thin. Eventually we found a guesthouse at the YWCA (pronounced “why-ca” here, another source of confusion) that was recommended by someone I met in Georgetown.
I can tell already that this is a much nicer place than Georgetown. It’s quieter, the houses are nice, there’s not piles of garbage on every street, and the people don’t shout at you constantly. Dutch is the main language here (it’s a former Dutch colony), but everyone seems to understand English. The people are an interesting mix mainly of black, Amerindian, Indonesian, Chinese, and Indian. While looking around, we met Arwen, a Dutch doctor who is staying here a year. We hung out with her and Robert and Rodger, two locals, and learned more about places to go and things to do in Suriname. I think we’ll stick around for a couple days now that we’re away from the madness of Georgetown.
Avoiding Getting Whacked
Dec 21st
December 16-18 2006
Day 386-388
My only reason for going to Georgetown was to get a visa to enter Suriname. I got into town on a Friday night, however, so I’d have to stay a few days until the embassy opened. In the meantime, I checked out St. George’s Cathedral, which is supposedly the biggest wooden building in the world, the Starbroek Market, where you can buy anything legal or otherwise, and the multitude of old English wooden buildings that are scattered throughout the city. One highlight was going to two new movies for 50 cents, but I was a bit disappointed that I missed out on seeing the new Bond movie by only a few days.
The guidebooks didn’t lie: it’s a dangerous place, and I was sick of it after a few days. Walking around in the day was fairly safe, but the constant shouts of “Hey white boy” started to bother me after awhile. I guess that since they don’t get many tourists here, the people have no idea how to treat them. I can imagine their surprise in a couple months when thousands of Australians storm the streets for the Cricket World Cup. A lot of people are nice, but the majority just shout at each other and drink and smoke weed all the time. There are almost no police around, and the atmosphere is completely different than the interior of the country. It’s too bad that the few tourists who do go to Guyana usually only go to Georgetown because hitchhiking around the interior was a real highlight for me. I felt that I was taking my chances with every day I stayed in town, so I was happy when my visa was processed quickly as soon as the new week started, and I made plans to enter Suriname first thing in the morning.
The photo album for this entry is here.
From One Jungle to Another
Dec 21st
December 15 2006
Day 385
Kaiteur Trek Day 8
A boat left early this morning for Pamela. We walked halfway back to Madia before a truck came and took us the rest of the way. We picked up the rest of our gear from the hotel and waited with Sally for a truck. It was only about an hour before an empty Bedford on its way to Georgetown passed us. Sally only stayed with us for a short time before getting off on a side road to try to hitchhike to his house in the middle of nowhere. We said goodbye and continued to Georgetown. It was great having a local with us for the trek to teach us about the porkknocking culture.
The road to Georgetown was horribly bumpy, and it was difficult to keep my sanity. I’d stand most of the time until my arms tired from being jiggled around too much, then I’d sit down for awhile until I got sufficiently bruised from being thrown around the bed. At one point, I got the bright idea of slinging my hammock across the bed of the truck, but I got violently swung to and fro, and fell out of the hammock a few times, so I eventually gave up and went back to standing. The good things about riding in the Bedfords vs the minibuses are that they are higher so you can see more scenery, there is plenty of space because you’re in the bed with only a few other people, and of course it’s free, whereas the minibuses are quite expensive by South American standards.
After a few hours, we passed Madia one more time and were once again back on the main road. There were three people in the front of the truck, but I didn’t take much notice until we stopped on a side road to pick up another hitchhiker. The driver got out with a roll of toilet paper and ran into the bush. His buddy also got out and stood behind the truck to stretch out. The hitchhiker got in the back with us. Suddenly, the third guy who had been in front the entire time moved over to the driver’s seat, started the truck, and took off! Craig, the other hitchhiker, and I had no idea what was going on. The driver’s buddy stared at the truck in disbelief as we drove away. I didn’t realize it at the time but we were being hijacked, or at least the guy was trying to steal the truck.
After about a minute, we hit a big bump and the truck came out of gear. The thief must not have known how to drive very well because he couldn’t seem to get the truck back in gear. We coasted to a stop, and the thief got out and ran around the corner. Suddenly, driver and his friend came running toward the truck. They asked what happened, and we told them that the other guy ran off. Finally, it clicked in my head that he had stolen the truck. A fuel truck for the same company was a few minutes behind us, so I don’t know how the thief thought he could get away with the truck, but he still gave it a shot. He hid in the thick jungle, so there was no way we’d find him, but the driver was angrily swearing and yelling about what he’d do to the guy if he ever caught him. It was a really bizarre sequence of events.
We finally reached Georgetown after seven solid hours in the Bedford. It was strange being on a paved road and seeing a city again after being away for so long. At first, the city didn’t appear as dangerous as everyone said. It’s supposed to be one of the most dangerous cities in all of South America, and judging from the constant reports of murders and robberies in the local newspaper, I’m going to be extremely cautious here. In fact, my only reason for staying at all in Georgetown is to get a visa to enter Suriname.
Our Ride Shows Up
Dec 21st
December 14 2006
Day 384
Kaiteur Trek Day 7
After breakfast this morning, we took inventory. A couple onions, no potatoes, enough porridge for one small breakfast, noodles and rice for a few bland meals, and almost no fuel to cook with. On top of that, we had almost no cash due to Guyana’s lack of ATM’s, and only a few days left on our tourist visas before having to leave the country. We really had to get back down the river soon, but there was still no sign of the boat guys.
Craig managed to catch one decent-sized fish, so we were able to eat a meager lunch. Afterward, I decided that I’d waited long enough and took off to look for the boat driver on top. I was walking about five minutes when I met the driver, his friend, the family, and Sally coming down the trail. We packed up camp and got ready to leave, but suddenly the driver wanted five times more money than what we gave him yesterday. I guess he realized that since we were tourists, he should try and jack up the price. There was no way we’d pay any more money. We already agreed on the price yesterday, and besides, we gave him practically all the cash we had. I demanded that they either give us our money back or take us down the river, and they finally caved and took us.
It took three days to walk upstream to our base camp, but it only took a few hours to go back down the river in the motorboat. When we reached Wartok falls, we unloaded everything and the driver went over the falls in the empty boat. We loaded all our gear once again and continued down the river. We reached Amatok late in the afternoon.
There weren’t any more boats heading down to Pamela today, so we camped out of the rain under a guy’s veranda at Amatok. We had a nice conversation with the guy who ran the mining camp we visited on our first night. The porkknocking lifestyle is really interesting; it’s just too bad they don’t care at all about the environment.
The gentle hum of a generator sounded shortly after dark, so we headed over to the bar to see what was happening. The owner put on a DVD of a documentary called The White Diamond, which had to do with a German company creating a small blimp and floating it over Kaiteur Falls. It was a pretty weird movie, but at the end, they showed an ultralight aircraft flying near the blimp, which confirmed that the German company was the same one that had the animal sanctuary I visited in Sorama. So they had all kinds of cool toys in the Guyanese back dam at one point. It was a goofy movie, but it did have a lot of nice shots of the waterfall. I especially liked the guy break dancing and moonwalking at the top.
The Raft that Didn’t Float
Dec 21st
December 13, 2006
Day 383
Kaiteur Trek Day 6
Craig had been talking up the idea of building a raft for awhile, so I figured what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. Our first task was to find wood. A few large logs were scattered here and there, and we got some more wood by disassembling part of the abandoned mining camp.
Next, we threw each of the logs into the water to test their buoyancy. The first three sank into the abyss of the river. The fourth one finally somewhat floated. We continued testing wood, but most of it sank. Still, maybe we’d have enough floaters to make it work.
We tied a bunch of the logs together, threw some planks we found on top for seats, and gave it a test run without our backpacks. When we sat on the raft, it slowly submerged into the water, then reached an equilibrium about a foot down. “Looks good, let’s go,” Craig said. I seriously began to question his sanity. Heading down the river on a raft would be cool, but not with water up to my chest and a backpack to worry about.
I went back to the campsite and started preparing my backpack. I inflated my mattress as much as possible inside my backpack, put whatever I could into plastic bags, and threw in a couple of plastic bottles I found scattered around to help the backpack float. I was seriously considering biting the bullet and flying out, even though it would mean an additional 8-hour bus ride back to Madia to pick up the gear I left behind. Suddenly, a motorboat came up the river and docked next to our raft! We hadn’t seen anyone on the river for days, yet here was this nice, big aluminum boat, ready to head back down. The driver and his friend claimed that they were there to transport a ranger and his family back down the river, but they needed to go up to the top to buy fuel. We agreed to a price, gave them our money, and they took off.
We figured they’d take about four hours to return with the fuel, but as the day droned on, it became more and more likely that they weren’t coming back down. Finally near sunset we set up camp and began cooking dinner. The boat was sitting in the water next to my tent, so there didn’t seem to be any way possible for the driver to take off with our money. Maybe the raft still would have been the better option. At least we’d be partway down the river by now.
Another Rainy Viewing
Dec 21st
December 12, 2006
Day 382
Kaiteur Trek Day 5
I walked to the top of the falls bright and early today, but it started raining again when I was near the top. Sally and Diego safely made it last night, so we spent awhile looking at the rainy falls again. We also walked over to Menzie’s Landing, a small mining outpost with a lot of shady characters near the waterfall. Diego and Cuckoo will fly out tomorrow, and Craig, Sally, and I will figure out some way to get down the river.
Up to the Falls
Dec 20th
December 11, 2006
Day 381
Kaiteur Trek Day 4
Craig and I got up early, ate a big breakfast, and walked to the top of the falls. For the first time, the path was actually in good condition and was easy to follow. It was foggy and raining heavily all morning, but we still managed to get to the top rather quickly. We walked around trying to find a sign of civilization, but the place looked deserted. We saw a sign for “Boy Scouts View,” and walked to it. There was a loud roar that we figured had to be Kaiteur Falls, but we still couldn’t see anything because it was so foggy. We kept walking and found an airstrip. A few minutes later we were at the guesthouse.
The owner of the guesthouse told us the direction to walk to get to the main view of the falls. When we got there, the view was overwhelming. At 741 feet, Kaiteur is boasted as the largest single-drop waterfall in the world, although it’s clearly just a marketing term. Angel Falls is over three times as high, yet it has a small drop at the top, so it’s not considered a “single-drop” waterfall. Still, finally getting to the falls after such a difficult trek was a really great feeling. Realizing that there weren’t any other tourists there other than Cuckoo, a Brit who had flown in, made the experience even more unique. Unfortunately, the rain and fog forced us to retreat to the guesthouse after less than an hour of viewing the falls.
When the rain picked up again, we were invited inside for coffee and biscuits. The owner, who is also the park ranger, couldn’t believe that we’d walked all the way from Amatok in the rainy season. He kept stressing that we should have paid for our park entrance in Georgetown, but he couldn’t comprehend that we hadn’t been there yet either. Still, he was quite hospitable to us after we promised to pay the park entrance fee tomorrow.
Craig and I walked back to the bottom early in the afternoon, but I vowed to return tomorrow if the weather was better. When we got back to base camp, I was relieved to see that Sally had finally made it. He promised that Diego wasn’t too far behind, and a few minutes later, he stumbled in. We all cooked up a big lunch, and Diego laid down, unable to do much else. We all put our heads together and eventually figured out how to take apart the plunger on my stove. I dug out the o-ring that had fallen off and put it back in place. The stove was fixed, so we didn’t have to cook on campfires anymore.
Diego was delighted to hear that not only was there a guesthouse on top of the falls, but there was also a landing strip so he could fly out. A few hours before dark, Sally convinced Diego to start walking to the top. I let them know that I’d meet them in the morning. Craig and I discussed how cool it would be to build a raft to go down the river so we wouldn’t have to walk it again.
Finally to Base Camp
Dec 20th
December 10, 2006
Day 380
Kaiteur Trek Day 3
The rain finally stopped sometime before sunrise, so were able to break camp in somewhat dry conditions today. We made our way through some more difficult terrain and got to Wartok Falls after about an hour of walking. Craig, Sally, and I relaxed on the beach for about ten minutes, but Diego immediately jumped into the water, fully clothed. He looked absolutely exhausted. We continued walking to where we thought the settlement would be, but unbeknownst to us, it was on the other side of the river.
Sally had taken the responsibility of helping Diego, and pretty soon Craig and I got way ahead of them. We stopped at a nice spot for some breakfast, but there was another problem. My stove was broken. The pump that compresses the fuel bottle wasn’t working, and I couldn’t figure out offhand how to pull it apart. I had been using it without incident almost daily for weeks until now. I was starving after eating nothing all day yesterday other than a little bread, so the stove broke at the worst possible time. We decided to try to get to the falls and fix the stove later. We could always cook on a fire if necessary.
The path wasn’t nearly as bad today, partly because it gets used more, partly because it’s upstream, so the side streams aren’t quite as big. Consequently, the trek changed from masochistic yesterday to quite enjoyable today. I lost sight of the river a few times crossing the side streams, but never for more than a few minutes. By 2:00 PM, Craig and I were at the base camp. We decided to wait there for the others to show up, and decide from there whether we wanted to lug all of our gear to the top.
We cooked a huge breakfast and lunch on a fire, and finally my stomach was full. It was sunny all afternoon, so I was able to get everything fairly dry. The area around the camp was absolutely beautiful with pristine jungle in all directions, a large set of rapids, and another waterfall on the other side of the river. We couldn’t see Kaiteur yet, but we found the path that leads to the top. We did some more fishing and waited some more for the others.
At dusk, Diego and Sally still hadn’t shown up. I was worried, but Sally is a local who is way more competent in this type of outdoor situation than even Craig, so we decided to give them another day to show up before going off to look for them. Tomorrow we’ll head to the top of the falls without our gear and come back down again.